Steps to becoming a Responsible Business

A company can embed social responsible practices, at various points of the business's development, to add to its efficiency and effectiveness for sustainability. A one man band is likely to adopt different practices, to a company with a team of ten or more people. It is therefore important to plan the way forward for the future growth of your company at the start of your venture.

  • Reduce consumption of energy, water and other natural resources; and emissions of hazardous substances.
  • Establish an Environmental Management System with objectives and procedures for evaluating progress; minimising negative impacts and transferring good practice.e.g. Waste Management Processes - Waste Matters
  • Use / produce recycled and recyclable materials increase the durability of products and minimise packaging through effective design ("reduce, reuse and recycle.")
  • Train staff in environmental issues so that they are looking for additional ways of reducing the firm's environmental footprint.
  • Offset carbon emissions with equivalent carbon-fixing such as tree-planting. Start a local Green Business Club which can help you and other local firms access conservation grants / expertise for reducing waste/water/energy.
  • Consider when you could use video-conferencing (e.g. in your local business advice organisation) to meet a potential supplier or customer rather than always physically travelling to the meeting.

(Check out other Striding Out Members who are suppliers of environmental products and services e.g. London Biopackaging. Look out for future training tools and workshops on this matter.)

  • Establish policies to ensure the health and safety of all employees - which are known to employees.
  • Involve employees in business decisions that affect them and will improve the work environment.
  • Operate "Open-book policies" and help employees to understand financial statements.
  • Consult employees on how to handle a downturn in the business (e.g. offer the option of all staff taking pay cuts or reduced hours instead of lay-offs). If layoffs or closures are unavoidable, offer outplacement services, retraining and severance benefits.
  • Provide training opportunities and mentoring so that promotion from within the organisation is maximised.
  • Extend training to life-management, retirement planning and dependents' care. Be open to job-splitting, flexitime and other forms of work-life balance / family-friendly policies.
  • Find some other local small businesses e.g. on your industrial estate or in your small business club/association/chamber and see if you could club together to share some training and human resources programmes.
  • Consider supporting day-care for children or elderly dependents. Provide health-screening and encourages healthy workplace practices (e.g. smoking bans and exercise; and drug and alcohol abuse support).
  • Provide a gym/sports facilities or offer subsidised membership of a local sports centre/gym.

(Seek support from our HR Advisers in the Dedicated Supplier Directory who can help you address and implement good employment practices)

  • Work with charities, job centres to re-design your vacant jobs so as to make them accessible to disadvantaged such as disabled workers.
  • Set the tone in not tolerating sexist, racist, homophobic jokes or behaviour in the business e.g. harassment and bullying.
  • Make sure that all staff know that there are explicit policies against discrimination in hiring, salary, promotion, training or termination of any employee on the basis of gender, race, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or religion.
  • When hiring, don't just ask friends/work colleagues but think creatively about where to advertise; the job and person specification - and whether there are any local employability schemes e.g. run by a local council or big local employer to help find work for the homeless or disabled candidates.
  • Pay comparable pay for comparable work.
  • Support organisations that promote "fair trade" and human rights compliance. Check where your products are manufactured and of any human rights issues involved.

(Seek support from our HR Advisers and identify socially responsible suppliers in our Dedicated Supplier Directory and Members Directory)

  • Encourage employee volunteering in the community and back-up with financial contributions and help in-kind.
  • Make some of the business's product or services available free or at cost to charitable and community projects.
  • Look for opportunities to make surplus product and redundant equipment available to local schools, charities, community organisations.
  • Buy from local suppliers.
  • Offer quality work experience for schoolchildren and students.
  • Collaborate with local teachers to make the activity of your business, the subject of a school project.
  • Use your business experience to help a local school or charity or community project to become more efficient and entrepreneurial.
  • Use some of your marketing budget to associate your business/brand with a social cause.

(You could identify and work with not-for-profit social enterprises which are members or suppliers of Striding Out. Look out for future training tools and workshops on this matter.)

  • Develop new environmental and social products and services.
  • Share your experience with business customers, business neighbours, and fellow members of your trade association or business organisation.
  • Explain the environmental, social and economic performance of the business to your stakeholders and consider their ideas / views in the development of the business.
  • Commit to an external code or standard or set of business principles that provide a framework for you and your stakeholders to measure your progress on environmental and social and community issues, against.

To find out more about the potential to integrate and embed responsible practices within your business, go to www.smallbusinessjourney.com.

Striding Out is keen to engage young entrepreneurs and our associates in implementing practical and simple sustainable business practices - whether you are a one man band or a whole team!...Every little bit counts! Striding Out runs the Sustainable Business Challenge, which encourages its network of entrepreneurs to introduce a new responsible practice each month.

  • March: Recycling and Community Challenge
    Collecting plastic milk bottle lids, print cartidges, mobile phones and used stamps for Naomi House. Naomi House offers a safe, caring and loving environment for terminally ill children, who are unlikely to reach adulthood. They provide respite care and support for the whole family during both good and difficult times. As a registered charity, they totally rely on voluntary donations to enable them to provide services. Over the past year recycled goods including print cartridges, mobile phones, used stamps (all of which have a high recyclable value) and bottle tops raised about �17,000 towards the running and upkeep of the hospice, so it is a very useful and important contribution to the total funding. To find out more about Naomi House visit www.naomihouse.org.uk
  • April: Sourcing Environmental Packaging and Products
    Source or produce recycled and recyclable materials to minimize environmental damage, increase the durability of products and minimise packaging through effective design "reduce - reuse - recycle."
    So how can you do it?

    • Use recycled paper in the office and seek sustainable and environmentally friendly printers. e.g.Kent Art Printers
    • Minimizing your packaging and seek more environmentally conscious packaging for products. e.g.London Bio-Packaging
    • Purchase recycled stationary and merchandise from sources such as e.g. Remarkable
    • To find out about other environmentally friendly suppliers, check out The Big Green Book.This is a great resource book for finding all the key suppliers.

  • May: Tap in Student Talent and Provide Valuable Work Experience
    Invest in the economic development of your future workforce, by providing valuable work experience or being a mentor for students in either Secondary or Higher Education. Having an insight into the real world of work is a valuable experience for any student, but tapping into the raw talent of youth is also great for business. Young People can provide you with new innovative ideas, fresh perspectives and skills which you may not even possess as a business owner.
    So how can you do it?

    • Provide Work Experience for a talented students through initiatives such as Shell Step. Shell Step is a structured placement programme for SME�s. It manages the admin and recruitment, to provide a student who can undertake a project in areas such as marketing, IT, product design etc.
    • Volunteer as a Mentor or Speaker for Education Enterprise Initiatives such as Young Enterprise UK. Relaying your entrepreneurial and business acumen to young people undertaking enterprise initiatives in School can be very rewarding and valuable for the young people involved.
    • Volunteer as a Mentor for young entrepreneurs setting up in Business through services such as the Princes Trust and Striding Out. Having a mentor in a specialist area, whether its marketing, HR etc, is extremely valuable for a young entrepreneur stepping out into self employment. Providing an hour a month may add significant value to the development of that individuals business and also provide a valuable learning experience in developing effective knowledge transfer skills.

  • June: During June we are encouraging you to engage in supporting a local or national charitable cause, by fundraising or offering inkind support.
    This not only provides much needed support to a charitable cause but it raises the respect and profile of your brand within the local community. Here are some ideas to get you started...

    • In-Kind Support - You could offer your skills to a charity to provide them with much needed knowledge and resources! e.g. SO Member Ebony Bailey provides a number of hours of telemarketing support to the NSPCC on a monthly basis.
    • In-Kind Fundraising - You could use your skills to raise funds for a charitable cause through engaging your customers, suppliers and associates in an fundraising event e.g. In August, Striding Out is hosting a charity pamper evening for CLIC, a charity supporting young children with Leukemia and Cancer.
    • Fundraising and Sponsorship Activities- You could raise sponsorship through signing up for a Charity Fun Run, or you could donate a certain % of your product's profit back into a charitable cause e.g. SO Member 'Halos and Horns' has partnered with Ocado, to raise funds for the NSPCC.
    • All these activities contribute to your Cause Related Marketing Campaign, which provides your business with credibility and respect. It is great way to have fun and get engaged in a worthwhile cause that is important to you and your business.

  • July: During July we are encouraging you to use your business experience to help a local school or community project to become more efficient and entrepreneurial.
    The reward of helping a local community can not only help and advance their need, but it will enable you to network with other skilled individuals to learn and develop your own knowledge and experience. I will tell you more about how we did it on the Striding Out Extreme Weekend.
  • August: During August we would like to draw the attention of small businesses to the Disability Discrimination Act. Under the DDA, small to medium sized businesses have to make �reasonable adjustments� so they do not discriminate against disabled customers or employees.This may affect the way you treat your staff, job applicants and customers. The Department of Work and Pensions has put together a Better Business Checklist for small businesses to anticipate what the need to consider.
    In summary it applies to the four key areas:

    • Accessing your information - signs, marketing material contact details, website etc.
    • Accessing your premises - access, seating, lighting etc.
    • Customer service - advertising, staff training, customer feedback, delivery etc.
    • Employing disabled people-flexibility, application forms, interviews, etc.


    Back

    Top