Making the case for environmental improvements

In order to raise the profile of environmental issues and improvements in your business, you should be able to highlight the key benefits to both senior management and staff.

Advantages of environmental improvements for your business

There are a number of reasons why improving your environmental performance makes good business sense, such as:

• Complying with legislation - rules are becoming increasingly tight as governments try to reduce the negative impact business operations have on the environment.
• Cutting costs - using less energy, water and raw materials will reduce your purchasing and waste disposal costs.
• Business opportunities - you may be able to create new products and market them as environmentally friendly, or work with organisations that require their partners to have good environmental credentials.
• Marketing opportunities - being able to demonstrate how your business is improving its environmental performance enables you to highlight this in the local media, enter award programmes and use relevant labelling schemes - see how to market your environmental credentials.
• Attracting and retaining staff - employees may be more willing to work for your business if you can demonstrate good environmental credentials.
• Improving stakeholder relations - in addition to your employees, other stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, investors and regulators are increasingly focusing on how a business manages its environmental performance.
• Future proofing - by understanding your business' environmental impact, you can better appreciate how future changes, such as new legislation, will affect you.

For further information, see how to improve your environmental performance.

When you put together your business case for environmental improvements, you may find it useful to consider both financial and non-financial factors. See how to make the financial case for environmental improvements and make the non-financial case for environmental improvements.