Sustainable business practices at ITVET

Sustainable business practices are a key step to stopping the damage to our planet. Thanks to the growing number of eco-friendly businesses, we have a chance to minimise climate change and its damaging influence on the environment, economies, and our everyday life.

However, researchers worry that it may be too late unless more companies adopt eco-friendly business practices. Hence, World Earth Day 2022 is dedicated to campaigning for companies to invest in our planet.

What is Earth Day, and why do we need to do more?

Earth Day is an international initiative, active since 1970, raising awareness of the importance of sustainability and celebrating the achievements so far. Our continued struggles with climate change show that joining a one-day event is not enough. Sustainability is about continuous action and choices to reduce our impact on our planet. The organisation in charge, EarthDay.org, emphasises the importance of everyday sustainability and everyone getting involved on the individual, company, and government levels.

Sustainability is often used as a synonym for environmentalism. However, that is not strictly true. In its actual definition, sustainability is fulfilling present needs without compromising the future generations’ meeting their needs. The environment and its natural resources are essential elements, but the social and economic aspects are just as important.

Benefits of being an eco-friendly business

Firstly, being a sustainable business offers a competitive advantage. Thanks to widespread education and awareness, customers care and actively choose more sustainable businesses, both in B2B and B2C, more than ever. To stand out among other companies, eco-friendly businesses need to show they go beyond compliance with the government sustainability regulations and take active action instead of just speaking about sustainability.

As well as offering a competitive advantage, it can save businesses money. Eco-friendly business practices lead to more efficient energy use and less wastage, lowering the company running costs.

Researchers found that companies who follow solid and sustainable practices also have much higher satisfaction and happiness levels among their employees.

Earth Day 2022 focuses on persuading businesses to follow more sustainable practices, as their actions, like nothing else, could positively impact climate change.

What should a company’s sustainability policies be?

Focusing too much on sustainability could be viewed as a threat to profitability, especially when the measure of success is financial growth. However, this mindset is swiftly shifting to a more purpose-driven approach, and success is measured based on the triple bottom line or the ‘’three Ps’’:

• Profit: The financial performance of the company
• People: The business’s societal impact, focusing on stakeholders including employees, customers, and the community
• The planet: The company’s impact on both the local and global environment

Shifting the focus away from only measuring monetary success will show the more in-depth company performance in line with its values.

The company sustainability policies should focus on tangible actions to help the business be eco-friendly. One of the critical issues with sustainable business practices is the gap between knowledge of sustainability and actually practising the principles and incorporating them into the standard business procedures. Like any other business objective, sustainability goals should be realistic, starting from achievable practices and growing.

One of the most popular concepts to follow is the 3Rs of sustainable business:

The key element of sustainable business practices is the employees. The company should educate and encourage its team’s efforts for sustainability, both big and small.

What actions does ITVET take to invest in our planet?

At ITVET, we’re committed to leading our industry to minimise the impact of our business activities on our environment. We want to lead by example, following and promoting good sustainable practices, benefiting our employees, community and planet.

We’re keenly aware of the tech industry’s impact on the environment and take active action to limit ours. Our efforts have been recognised by the British Standards Institute, rewarding ITVET with ISO 14001 certification for environmental management standards.

What are ITVET’s key sustainability commitments and practices?

1. Minimising waste

We focus on the 3Rs principle, recycling waste across all our sites and reusing items whenever possible. We limit single-use items like plastic bottles, providing our team with reusable items. Printing and paper use is limited and done only when necessary, and notes are taken digitally.

• Reducing our carbon footprint

We minimise our toxic emissions by using hybrid company vehicles, avoiding physically travelling to meetings wherever possible. As well as offering our team the option to work remotely and avoid the needless commute. Recently, we joined a net-zero initiative with Tree-Nation, planting trees in deforested areas to balance out the carbon footprint of our website.

• Controlling energy use

ITVET has a dedicated energy ambassador whose job is to evaluate and identify the devices that consume the heaviest volumes of power. Based on their research, we actively use the latest technology innovations to reduce our power consumption based on their research. We’ve retrofitted our head office with IoT sensors and data monitoring features to support our efforts to create an energy-efficient smart building.

• Giving back to the community

In our sustainability efforts, we focus not only on the environment but also on our community. As part of our Laptop for Schools initiative, we collect and refurbish old laptops, limiting IT wastage and donating them to local schools in need. Our Stortford Heroes charity supports community initiatives such as a community fridge to reduce food waste.

• Supporting others to become sustainable

We provide a free consultation to our customers to assist them in reducing their carbon footprint. We openly share our best practices, so everyone can benefit from our journey to becoming a green business.

Why this is just the beginning

Sustainable business practices are about consistent actions and improvements. There are many discoveries and innovations to improve our sustainability, and we continue to work towards doing better every day. We believe every day should be Earth Day, with businesses and individuals taking recommended actions to protect our planet.