Becoming Carbon Neutral - Step 1 Complete
As of January 2020 I set myself a target of becoming a carbon neutral business by the end of 2020.
I wasn’t entirely sure what that would include, or what the steps would be, the order, or cost. I just knew it needed to be done. Our country was on fire and business couldn’t continue as usual.
I’ve made the first small steps to working towards a more sustainable, ethical and carbon neutral business with a long way still to go but I wanted to share my progress. I hope it can help others.
Step 1: Office Efficiency:
The summers are hot, winters relatively cold, and my studio had no insulation. This mean’t there was a relatively cheap and quick solution to save between 10 and 30% on heating and cooling costs per year. I’ve now installed insulation batts into the roof and noticed the difference immediately.
Step 2: Switching to Australian Ethical Super:
With up to 9% of my yearly revenue going into my super, I felt it was imperative that the money was invested in an ethical way. No more coal investments for that money. I chose to go with Australian Ethical and the process was amazingly simple. 2 minutes and it was done. Another quick win!
Step 3: Planting trees with every search - Switching to Ecosia:
Every time we use the internet, or make a search enquiry carbon is being emitted and a company is making a profit. I’ve switched my default search engine in Safari to Ecosia, a search engine who uses their profits to plant trees! How good is this ‘Since we produce our own solar electricity, and because we use our profits to plant CO2-sequestering trees, Ecosia is not just “carbon neutral”: your searches actively remove CO2 from the air.’
Read more here: https://blog.ecosia.org/why-carbon-neutral-is-not-enough-ecosia-has-built-its-own-solar-plants/
So that’s where we’re up to so far. I’m currently researching solar companies to look into installing solar panels and a battery system for the studio as well as the potential for a skylight to reduce daytime light requirements. Before then I’ll be switching to 100% renewable energy supplier such as enova.
I’ll also been switching my business banking over from ANZ to Bank Australia to ensure your payments are going towards more ethical and sustainable areas.