By Jon Berry, managing director and co-founder, Tyler Grange

Give your employees access to more eco-friendly schemes and initiatives

To inspire your team and promote a larger sense of purpose, make your workplace culture more eco-friendly, give employees access to eco-friendly schemes and initiatives.

At Tyler Grange, we’ve recently switched to climate-focussed pensions provider Cushon, which invests in real projects and infrastructure for fast positive climate impact. The money we invest into our pension pot makes real climate change happen and we also get to vote on environmental and social governance issues on its interactive app.

Jon Berry, managing director and co-founder

We also use B Corp carbon-negative network provider, Honest Mobile and, because billions of perfectly good smartphones drop out of use each year, we give our Tribe refurbished, pre-loved models, rather than new.

All our company vehicles are also now electric, and an electric car scheme is available to all employees, through Octopus.

Go beyond environmental and sustainability accreditations

Working towards – and indeed, achieving – environmental and sustainability accreditations is a great starting point. But to make your sustainability purpose and principles authentic, they must be embedded into an organisation’s culture and underpinned by bold and transparent actions.

Make it easier for your team to make small changes and encourage education amongst your clients and collaborators. We’ve created an in-house Decarbonisation Team to drive our emission reduction strategies and as a member of the Better Business Network, our Tribe, partners, and collaborators all have access to Carbon Literacy training.

We also promote employee volunteering, mainly for environmental charities and organisations, as that’s where our experience lies. As well as helping the environment, green volunteering also provides employees with many personal benefits, such as improved health and well-being and a greater sense of belonging and purpose.

Sustainability is not a responsibility for tomorrow, but an imperative action for today. Be transparent and be innovative. Don’t make excuses, change should be hard, but it also make you a better business.

Reduce bureaucracy for more sustainable operations

As well as taking many steps to improve our environmental sustainability, we’ve also really focussed on how we can enhance our business sustainability, including cutting down on bureaucracy, unnecessary meetings and journeys, and other inefficiencies.

In preparation for taking part in the UK’s four-day week pilot in 2022, we did a great deal of work – and made significant investment in technology and systems – to ensure we were ready long before we went live.  This includes working out where we weren’t using our time most efficiently and how time and cost savings could be made.

We’re now much more productive, efficient, and effective. Working 80% of the time, we’re achieving 109% productivity, which means we’re 29% more productive. Our Tribe is also 28% less tired and 14% happier, according to our Alertness App. And we’ve also reduced our emissions by traveling 24,000 business miles less each year – an average monthly decrease of 21%. They’ve been reduced further by electrifying as many journeys as possible and using public transport.

Make your supply chain as sustainable as possible

Again, to inspire colleagues and to promote a greater sense of purpose, sourcing products and services that align with your culture and values.

As a certified B Corp, we work with suppliers – including 25 fellow B Corps – that share our commitment to minimising environmental impact. These include Project Merchandise and Social Supermarket for our office supplies, branded merchandise, and gifting. Our website is 100% renewably powered, hosted by Krystal and Octopus Group, is an energy provider for our owned offices. We also work with Compare Your Footprint for emissions reporting.

Internal and external e-newsletters are managed on the Ecosend platform, which reduces email carbon footprint and reinvests a proportion of profits into carbon capture initiatives, and plants trees to offset each email campaign. And our sustainable printer offers no-water use printing and zero waste to landfill since 2009.

Tyler Grange is a member of the Better Business Network and supports the Better Business Act – both of which promote a cleaner, greener, fairer future for all. It has seven UK offices located in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Exeter, Cardiff and Cirencester, in the Cotswolds and has just been recognised as one of The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2024 and was named SME Employer of the Year at the InsideOut Awards 2024. It has also recently received Living Wage Employer accreditation from the Living Wage Foundation. 

For more information visit tylergrange.co.uk