How To Get The Green Light On Green Initiatives In 2020

From securing leadership buy-in to getting financial approvals on purchasing, or motivating employees to adopt new routines, getting the green light for green initiatives can be a challenge. Resistance to change and making new investments comes in many forms. But with the new year comes unique opportunity and new energy to get those promising projects off the ground. The key is likely knowing and understanding your audience and giving them what they need to see the value in what you’re doing and how it will drive benefits for your business.

Here are some fresh ideas and strategies to make a case for implementing sustainability-focused ventures at your organization.

1.  In 2020, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is everyone’s business

Today’s leading businesses are fully aware that CSR is not just a talking point. Core components of successful business strategies include environmentally and socially responsible operations promoting growth and progress. From a corporate perspective, help your decision-makers understand that it’s time for your business to take CSR seriously, and green initiatives are an essential part of the picture.

When presenting a new idea or project, lean on your company’s CSR and tie what you’re doing back to the broader corporate strategy and CSR mandate. Even if sustainability isn’t an explicit goal, green initiatives still support many other issues like corporate ethics and transparency, labor practices, or creating new opportunities for the community.

2. Your brand reputation depends on it

Closely linked to CSR, improving (or just maintaining) your brand reputation is another compelling justification for supporting a green initiative. Customers, vendors, competitors, and other parties are highly informed and highly critical of brands and their environmental records.

t’s imperative to show that your brand can be trusted and that green thinking is part of the business model. A poor environmental reputation can create serious adverse effects on the overall success of a company. With abundant alternatives out there, customers won’t hesitate to turn to the competition if they feel a brand isn’t living up to environmental standards.

Plus, launching innovative and forward-looking green projects is an effective and low-cost marketing strategy that helps increase and improve brand visibility, credibility, and public sentiment.

3. Put people first: build it for the team

Young or old, sustainability is on everyone’s radar and is something that your workforce cares about. So, launching a project that will improve your environmental footprint will have a positive impact on your people. It’s about building morale and boosting engagement. Whether that’s green procurement, carpooling, or the office recycling program. People want to feel good about the place they work at. Additionally, sustainability and environmental responsibility is an important selling point for attracting and retaining today’s top talent.

3. Build it with the team

While many support the idea of sustainability, progress can be stagnant in unsupportive internal culture. Culture can be one of the most unexpected and frustrating challenges of launching a new green project. When trying to get something off the ground, think about it in terms of culture change, which often requires dedicated communication, education, and participation.

It’s important to communicate clearly how the initiative ties to your company vision and goals, so people can realize the positive benefits, not just how they might have to change. Many also need to be educated to understand the issue, see how it affects them, and how the benefits will impact the company and the broader community.

Along with communication and education, human energy and participation are significant parts of shifting culture and launching something new. The better you can convincingly communicate the project’s vision, the more education available, and the more people involved, the easier it will be for the workforce to embrace and contribute to the initiative.

5. Sustainability makes economic sense

The priority for many decision-makers and stakeholders is the bottom line. Green initiatives deliver financial benefits, but unfortunately, there are those who still believe that sustainability is expensive and offers minimal rewards, making it difficult to get approvals and buy-in.

However, the numbers are there and show that sustainability can save money, decrease waste costs, increase efficiencies, and thus grow business and increase revenue. Getting around this mental obstacle can be achieved with transparent financial reporting and demonstrating how your initiative will yield bottom-line positive results. It’s hard to contend against a well-presented argument for installing LED lightbulbs that will save $1,000 a year or adapting your recycling program to halve disposal costs in the next five years. Do the math and present a solid business case. Show how your proposal will save money, is affordable, and will deliver ROI.

On top of that, you can follow up on how your project will also improve brand reputation, employee morale, meet your CSR mandate, and ultimately drive more business and revenue for your company.