What can your business do?
Reducing environmental impact and saving carbon has many benefits to businesses, including:
- cost savings from using resources more efficiently, such as cutting energy, water use and waste
- accessing new markets by developing sustainable products and services
- protecting reputation and credibility by reducing environmental impact
- being prepared for future changes and policies
- attracting staff and improving morale – having a strong ethos of sustainability is increasingly important to employees.

Where can your business start?
You can improve your company’s emissions with small and large actions:
Reduce waste:
- Move towards a ‘circular’ economy business model – explore opportunities for reusing and renewing items
- Aim for ‘zero waste to landfill’ – reduce the amount of waste going to landfill and follow the waste hierarchy
- Move away from single use products – invest in glasses, mugs, crockery and cutlery in staff kitchens and catering. Minimise packaging and work with suppliers to reduce the packaging they deliver to you.
- Reduce paper – go paperless where possible, or consider using a sustainable printing service
Travel:
- Reduce the need to travel – consider allowing staff to work from home or using video conferencing for meetings.
- Promote sustainable travel – offer a cycle to work scheme, including providing bike racks and showers, convert company cars to electric ones, and consider taking the train to European destinations
Save water:
- Improve your company’s water efficiency – see Waterwise for tips for businesses
Energy Suppliers:
- Use cloud computing to significantly cut emissions from digital services
- Switch to a green energy supplier
- Consider installing renewable energy in your building, such as solar panels or heat pumps.
- Here are some links for useful tips on energy efficiency:
- Energy Solutions Oxfordshire (ESOx) – is a one-stop service for small and medium sized businesses in Oxfordshire to undertake energy efficiency improvements.
- The Carbon Trust has guides and tools to help, including sector and technology specific advice.
Develop a sustainability strategy – this will help provide direction and a framework for achieving your sustainability goals. Conduct a survey on your carbon emissions and use this information to plan how to reduce your emissions. Take a look at Better Business’s tips, or see Corporate Citizenship’s guide.
Engage to create change:
- With suppliers – work to identify and reduce the carbon emissions of your business. Consider implementing a green procurement strategy
- With customers – tell them about your sustainability actions and get feedback on ways they would like your services to be more environmentally-friendly
- With other companies – to share ideas, find new markets, products and solutions. Consider joining Oxfordshire Greentech to be part of a business network that will advise on reducing carbon emissions
- With staff – ask for their ideas about what the company should do, run internal campaigns to reduce waste and increase recycling
- With your local community – support local climate and wildlife groups by allowing staff time off to volunteer
Support from the Council
- Our business support pages offers sustainability advice and other useful pieces of information to run your business in Vale of White Horse
- We have partnered with Oxfordshire Greentech to support local businesses to reduce their carbon emissions. Become a member to have access to specialist resources, business promotion, grant funding and more. As the council is a member, you can receive 10 percent off basic member rates.
Go further
- One Planet Living mini toolkit for small and medium-sized organisations will help you create a One Planet Action Plan that embeds sustainability within your organisation.
- Consider becoming a B Corp, a business that balances purpose and profit. B Corps are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on their workers, customers, suppliers’ community, and the environment.
- Work to achieve a recognised an international environmental standard such as ISO14001.