ARTICLE
How to shout about the carbon reductions made in your company
So you’ve made energy improvements to your premises, and now you want to ensure your customers, staff, and stakeholders know about it. Here’s our advice, and an introduction too our Energy Pioneer Award.
At Energy Solutions Oxfordshire, our focus is on reducing the carbon emissions from our buildings and premises through making energy improvements. We think it is important that businesses who reduce the environmental impact of their buildings are recognised for their work in this area, because all businesses and organisations should be playing their part in the transition to a cleaner energy system.
Plus, in today’s world, people are becoming more and more concerned about the social and environmental impact of the companies they choose to buy from or work with. For instance, a Nielsen report from October 2020 found that 66% of consumers were willing to pay more for goods from brands that could demonstrate social commitment.
Two-thirds of consumers are willing to pay more to buy from companies that can demonstrate their social commitment .
So, in this article we’re looking at how you can shout loudly about the carbon reductions your company has made.
Make it obvious
When a potential customer, supplier, staff member, or stakeholder searches for information about your business, you want it to be easy for them to find out the great work you’ve been doing to reduce the environmental impact of your premises. So make sure it’s obvious; that it’s easy to find information on the energy improvements on all of your marketing channels.
Here are some ideas:
Update your ‘about us’ section on your website
Ensuring that your brand story aligns with your audience’s values is key, and incorporating your carbon reduction work here will help your company to stand out. If you have information on your website about your office space (contact us, visit us, how to find us etc) then make sure this also has a section describing your energy improvement work at the premises.
The business case for energy efficiency – how to get buy-in from your senior leadership team
Publish a blog or case study
Write up a summary of the energy improvements that have taken place at your premises and publish them on your website as a blog or case study. You could even record this as a short video if you prefer. Make sure you tell the story of why your company decided to make these changes and explore reducing your environmental impact – that’s what will resonate with your potential customers.
Share the story
Once you have your written summary, blog, video – or whatever format you choose! – make sure you then share this story with your network. This is a great piece of content to share on your company’s social media channels (and make sure you pin it to the top of the channel to make it obvious too!), email newsletter, and more to let your audience and network know what you’ve been working on.
Highlight your goals and plans for the future
Whilst it’s brilliant that your organisation has worked hard to make improvements so far, it’s also important that you don’t stop there. Being an environmentally conscious organisation means always striving to make continual changes to reduce the carbon emissions your company is responsible for – it isn’t just a one off activity.
So take some time to evaluate your priorities and put goals and targets in place for what you want to do next, and share those with your audience too. An annual impact report can be a great tool to do this, giving you a way to celebrate the improvements made in that year, whilst also sharing your plans and aims for the coming year too.
Use internal communication channels too
It’s easy to focus on external marketing channels, but remember that your staff, partners, and stakeholders are also an incredibly valuable channel for your brand. These are the people who will be out in the world telling others about the organisation they work for, so you want them to be sharing these positive stories of carbon reductions.
Ideally, you want to ensure that internal members of your organisation are kept notified and engaged of the work being done throughout the project – so that they feel informed and involved, part of the project. The more aware they are of what’s happening, the more they’re able to feel proud of the company they’re connected with, and share what it’s working on with others. Make sure to keep them updated with regular email communications, or presenting at your team meeting on the progress made so far.
After the work is done, you could also ask your internal team to share the story with their networks too, expanding your reach. This could be through:
- Updating their email signature to include a link to information on the project.
- Sharing the company’s social media posts with their own social network.
- Connecting you with relevant members of the community that they know, such as local journalists.
Prove your impact – the importance of certification
At the same time as people are more aware of the environmental impact of the businesses they buy from and work with, they’re also more aware of ‘greenwashing’ in marketing, wherein brands make claims around their environmental impact which may be exaggerated or simply untrue. Many of us will now ensure that we do our research about a brand instead of simply believing what we see in their advertising messages or on their website.
Honesty, transparency, and authenticity are key in shouting about the environmental impact of your organisation because of this, to ensure that you aren’t actually harming your brand’s perception by making claims about your environmental impact that can’t be backed up.
We’ve already mentioned the importance of ensuring that environmentally positive work is not simply seen as a one-off campaign, and instead that your organisation is making plans and goals for continual improvement – which can be demonstrated through a sustainability or social impact report.
Another great way to prove your commitment to sustainability and being an environmentally responsible business, is to explore certification options.
And that’s where our Energy Pioneer Award comes in. Any organisation which is actively working with Energy Solutions Oxfordshire to improve their energy efficiency becomes eligible for the Energy Pioneer Award and will be invited to apply.
Once you’ve gone through the process and received your award, your organisation is free to use the Award badge on your website and other marketing channels, as well as receiving a printed certificate and window sticker for use at their premises – helping you to shout about their sustainability achievements to staff, customers, and visitors.
Thanks for reading!
Energy Solutions Oxfordshire is a complete energy efficiency service, helping organisations lower their energy use, while saving time and money. Get started by filling out our online survey to get a free Desktop Diagnosis Report for your organisation.
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