- from Sustainable Busimness Council
“The idea to enter the Sustainable60 awards first came to us as part of our marketing plan, as a way of demonstrating our sustainable business practices. The beauty of having the Sustainable60 judges reviewing our work is that we get externally audited. Also, the questions we get asked can make you consider things you wouldn’t have thought of before and make you look at yourself a bit differently.
“For example, previously we hadn’t been great at writing things down and recording everything – especially our success and achievements. This process makes you do that.
“This was the third time we’d entered the awards – we never made the finals before. We took previous feedback on board about us having a good story, but it needed telling differently. So this time we just told it our way.
“We’ve made some massive gains in the last few months – we’ve changed the way we do dry cleaning and our footprint has dramatically decreased. So we may enter again this year.
What motivated the company to step up its environmental practices?
“Money!” says Bevan. “We realised it could add a fair bit of money to our bottom line through reducing our costs. Also from a marketing perspective, and simply for business survival, I realised we had to keep up in the sustainability space in order to remain competitive. Somewhere along the way though, everything clicked and now it is a major consideration in everything we do.
“The whole team have totally embraced this move towards being sustainable. I think it helped that we explained to every team member what we are doing and why we are doing it and their involvement.
“We record our gas and water and power on a daily basis and the whole crew can see how we are tracking. This helps everyone learn about the most efficient way of doing things. We have a good culture for change and trying new things. We did LEAN training prior to the sustainability initiative, which really helped too. We were not the stereotypical company to have a Prius for example! But we’ve all learnt and adapted.
“Winning S60 has definitely given us recognition in the market place. I’ve even had mates overseas pick up on it simply through the online coverage and having the win on our email signatures.
“We were stoked to win against some really successful brands and companies. It has also given us the confirmation that we are on the right track.”
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