Today I want to talk about sustainability.

Why that’s important in your business?

It can be a great marketing tool, it’s hot on the agenda, you hear it everywhere now especially after blue planet, and it can be great for your bottom line.

One of the problems is there is not an accepted definition of what sustainability is.

Some definitions of sustainability I’ve heard;

• Reducing the carbon footprint
• Reducing the air miles and stuff you’re using
• Just reducing single-use plastics
• Reducing the amount of waste generally that goes into landfill

Personally, I think it’s all of those but plus it’s about sustainable local economies.

There’s some market research out recently that says there are eight pubs, restaurants and bars a day closing in the UK (read more here ).

That’s a lot of communities are getting hit because the centre of their community has always been the local pub, it might be the restaurant or it’s a bar that are closing. So they’d lose in that focus, so if you can keep the sustainability up, keep the money you spend local, that means you’re spending out to your local trade people, your local produce makers, they can then spend that money again locally and it will probably be in your door spending money with you.

It’s a circular economy.

It’s really really important that we keep that going. Once you’ve got that going you can start looking at what effect it will have on the regional economy. Again it will help that’ll go on, it will then start helping the global economy, because everything we do if we can just reach to improve what we do 1%, which is what the cyclists and the England rugby team focused on, then we can all make it a sustainable planet to everyone.

With sustainability you will hit your bottom line, you can improve it. It doesn’t have to be expensive to do, there are low cost, even free cost stuff you can do, just to reduce what you do. For instance we go into pubs very early in the morning, quite often your staff have left lights on. If you can train them not to that it’s great – that makes it sustainable, your bottom line is great and you’re doing what you need to do for the planet.