Each month we will be delving into topics covering different areas of Sustainability, looking at decarbonisation, circularity, sustainable reporting and future innovations. At The Impact Adviser we’re here to provide you with fractional sustainability services that would normally be performed under a sustainability team, but at a lower cost.
We understand that reporting requirements are a potential strain on a business. Especially if your customer base is global, or you’re wanting to reach out into new markets. We have a tailor made service based on a number of cost-effective, 'pay as you go' packages that can help you grow your customer base. Please check out our packages here.
If you aren’t there yet, check back every month to delve into different sectors, and different topics to help you on your way.
Can We Call It Sustainability Anymore?
Sustainability.
Derived from the Latin word 'sustinere' which means ‘to maintain, support, uphold or endure’. It’s pretty vague, which is why the EU, and the UK have banned this term from being used for marketing purposes under the Green Claims Code. But you’ll still see it everywhere. Especially in service-based industries such as ours.
We could talk about all the ways we help you make your business sustainable. Such as Scope 3 accounting, carbon reduction plans, CSRD strategy and implementation, circularity mapping or best practices for legislative reporting…… But we’d be here all week. So we stick to one blanket term; sustainability. It’s the best available term we currently have. And even the legislation still uses it! Like the ESPR which is the Eco-Design for Sustainable Product Regulation.
In theory we aren’t supposed to use the word sustainable when communicating to potential customers. But I’m guessing, if you’re reading this, then you might already be one of ours. So it’s a good thing we outlined all those specific ways we can help at the top of this post!
If you want to know how you can transition from using the term ‘sustainable’ in a generic way and make it more specific under various Green Claims Codes then here are a few examples.
1 - “By using X% of recycled materials we are avoiding X kg C02e, which is the equivalent of taking X number of cars off the road. By using preferred materials we are also saving X amount of water.”
2 - “By making this product mono-component, we are ensuring that all of it can go into a recycling scheme. Reducing wastage by X% compared to our previous item.”
3 - “We have designed this product to be 100% repairable, either by sending it to one of our partners, or through self repair for which we provide detailed instructions and spare parts. By increasing the lifetime of a product we save X emissions, X water and X waste.”
4 - “By switching all our company cars to electric we have saved X kg C02e just by visiting our customers.”
The bottom line is that sustainability claims must be more specific, and to be meaningful and ultimately compliant- they must be measurable.
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