In today’s guest blog, we are pleased to welcome Steve Malkin, Guinness World Record Holder, and more importantly, the founder and CEO of Planet Mark, a leading sustainability certification and net zero partner for businesses. These days, businesses are expected to demonstrate a real, authentic, and ongoing commitment to sustainability – but where should they start? Read on to find out…

The sustainable movement has grown exponentially over the past few decades. It’s an area that I moved into after breaking a few world records, one of which was for the longest distance travelled by an electrically powered Go Kart!

Around 20 years ago, I was running two or three small PR, marketing, and events businesses. One of my campaigns at the time was for the British South Africa Club, where I took journalists scuba diving so they could see the wonders of our underwater planet. It was eye-opening to go underwater and see signs of degradation and coral reef destruction first-hand.

This was the catalyst that led me to work with environmentally conscious and more sustainable solutions – I wanted my work to focus on climate awareness and use my skills to help organisations do a better job of their overall sustainable performance.

Back then, there was already a significant movement around the relationship between sustainability and climate, but a lot of organisations didn’t really understand too much about measuring and reducing carbon. It was typically the domain of very large organisations, and even then, they didn’t have a specific department for this.

Today, however, the landscape has shifted massively. We’ve seen a growing awareness and adoption of true sustainable values across a greater spectrum of organisations, along with methods to measure these elements. Companies can measure their sustainability efforts by tracking their carbon footprint, which includes data on energy use, travel, waste, and water consumption. Additionally, they can assess social impact through community engagement and employee wellbeing metrics.

 

 

Consumers and corporate understanding of sustainability has expanded to include environmental, social governance (ESG). This refers to a set of standards used to measure a company’s impact on the environment, its social responsibilities, and how it governs itself. To set their own ESG policy, companies typically start by assessing their current impact in these areas, then setting clear goals, and implementing practices to achieve them.

Savvy consumers also understand carbon measurement and reporting, and the importance of measuring social value and social impact. The latter includes the societal, environmental, and economic benefits that an organisation’s actions bring to individuals and communities.

Organisations are now recognising their impact on nature, the environment and biodiversity. These huge changes have prompted an increase in regulation and policy, and with it a large uptake in opportunity for organisations to get their arms around it. We first reported on these trends in 2022, and you can see them in more detail in this article.

However, the same challenges still exist. Most companies don’t actually know where to start, especially the smaller ones further down the supply chain – which is, ironically, where a lot of innovation exists, and where organisations are bringing better products and services to market.

I often hear ‘I know we should be doing something. I don’t quite know what it is.’ But, in fact, every organisation I talk to is doing something already, even if it is just scratching the surface. For example, some really good recycling is taking place or more sustainable products and services are being implemented. This is great, but it’s just not being measured, and that is where we can step in and help.

 

 

The first step to integrating a sustainability scheme into a business is to measure its carbon footprint – and whilst this may seem like a huge obstacle, it’s actually really easy to get going. A carbon footprint can be broken down into three scopes:

Scopes one and two largely encapsulate the utilities, fleet, transport, company vehicles, and electricity. Organisations have bills for all of these, which can be translated easily into carbon. Simple! Scope three covers almost everything else the organisation does, such as buying, selling, or distributing.

• Scope 1 emissions are the direct GHG emissions from operations due to owned or controlled site and vehicle fuel consumption.
• Scope 2 emissions are the indirect GHG emissions from the generation of purchased electricity and steam, and are produced outside a company’s direct control
• Scope 3 includes all other indirect sources of GHG emissions that are within a company’s value chain, such as employee commuting, waste generated by the company’s operation, production and transportation of raw materials and the use and disposal of products and services by customers. Scope 3 emissions often represent the greatest proportion of a company’s carbon footprint, and sometimes up to 90% of total emissions.

For companies to start measuring their carbon, they first need to organise it into these three scopes. Once this has been done, we can start to formulate ‘a net zero carbon footprint’ for that organisation and, in turn, its customer base. This is where they de-risk their business and have the opportunity to win more new clients and retain existing ones, because you’re helping to solve their problem and reach their green goals too.

I was fortunate enough to be able to make that change in my career and be part of this incredible movement. I still enjoy it every day and it’s so satisfying to see more policy and regulation come into force and companies, like Jangro, make positive changes in their organisation. It makes complete sense – from a business sense, for society, health and wellbeing, and the environment – and there’s no reason, at all, why every company on the planet shouldn’t be doing it.

Tune into to episode two of Keep it Clean, a podcast from Jangro, to hear Steve and Ross Osborne, Sustainability and Innovations Director here at Jangro, talk more on this subject and how your cleaning supplier help you reach your green goals.

For more information about Planet Mark, visit https://www.planetmark.com/  

More blogs filled with other voices in the industry are coming soon.