Come down a carbon shoe size

Five years ago nobody even thought about their carbon footprint. Today, however, your firm’s green credentials can be either a business selling point or a real problem.

What do you need to do to reduce CO2 emissions? First, give your company a health check. Determining how much your operations emit and which parts of the business are the worst offenders will enable you to target areas in most need of a shake-up. Third-party carbon footprint assessors can help calculate your emissions, but as these are often down to old or lax work methods and excessive travelling, common sense will get you a long way.

Recycling and reuse is an obvious place to start. Where possible recycle waste including IT equipment and office furniture. Print on both sides of paper before recycling it; cut down on its use by ensuring staff refrain from printing emails; and implement systems of document management to reduce paper use, including printing and photocopying.

Travel can also easily be reduced. Use telephone, web or video conferencing as opposed to out-of-office meetings and encourage the use of public transport or car sharing when staff do have to travel.

Ah yes, staff; here is the crux of the problem – and the solution. Ensure they are properly involved in your green initiative. Keep everyone informed and encourage people to come forward with ideas. Do this by appointing a green executive to oversee the new environmental policy and set up a green committee made up of staff from all departments.

When everything that can be done has been attended to and all of your staff are working to reduce the carbon footprint, consider offsetting your remaining emissions by buying into tree planting or green energy projects in the developing world.

Finally, when you’ve ticked all the boxes, do an annual progress check to see which areas or initiatives have been forgotten about. If you don't keep it down, your carbon footprint will grow again.

Version One is a supplier of “paperless” electronic document and management software, which enables electronic storage, retrieval, management and delivery of business documents.