Achieving sustainable goals is more important than ever. But how can you prove that you are actively working on this? One answer is: certificates. With a certificate, you demonstrate that you meet certain standards. But which certificate is right for you? How can you get started? How does the process work? We tell you how to achieve sustainability certification in 10 steps.
Let's start at the beginning. Obtaining a sustainability certificate starts with realising that you need to do something with it. Since you are reading this article, it has your interest. This means that your first step towards sustainability certification has been taken.
Step 2 of the process is the baseline measurement. Measuring is knowing. Who knows, your company might not be in such a bad position in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions at all. Using the national database on ep-online.co.uk you can find the energy label of your commercial property. Unfortunately, there is no database for rentals. Tenants who have not received a label can report this to the ILT. To get more insights into the business rather than the property, you can go through Better Business Scan Get an identification within 15 minutes of where your company is currently in transition and what challenges are involved. This will help you understand how drastically your organisation needs to be tackled.
Perhaps you already have a good idea of how sustainable you are. Perhaps your sustainable transition is still in its infancy. In either case, partnering with a 3rd party can be very useful. Often, these companies are well versed in certification processes. When selecting such a company, make sure you look carefully at the goals you have in mind. They can then help you with which certificates are most suitable for your business.
There are many different seals of approval, which entrepreneurs often find confusing. Important certificates include;
Check out our article; getting lost in the world of certificates" to read exactly what each certificate entails. You will now have a better idea about which certificates are out there, and which ones may be of interest to your organisation.
After researching exactly what certificates there are and what they mean, it is important to make a selection. After all, you want to obtain a certificate that directly aligns with your sustainability goals. Important in this step is drawing up KPIs. This makes weighing up all the certificates a lot clearer. Your KPIs could be, for example:
Once you have chosen which certificate suits your organisation, you have probably already weighed up various costs. Nevertheless, it is good to double-check what kind of costs your organisation will pay for obtaining this certificate. These costs can be structured from baseline measurement, to actual implementation and final check by a certificate issuer. If you are working with a 3rd party, take a good look at the costs this party entails.
Now that the costs have been identified, we can start looking at what possible subsidies there are for the costs that will be incurred. There are 3 types of subsidies you can weigh up applying for:
The preliminary research has been done. Costs have been identified, certificates have been compared and subsidies have been applied for. Now comes the implementation. This will vary from company to company, but in some cases, quite a lot of actions will have to be taken. The moment this is all done at the same time, it means you will probably have to close your site... That does not sound like a good plan. Therefore, consider carefully when to do what action first and last in the business and premises.
The moment of truth. Will your actions be approved or do you still need to address some things? A factor in this is the extent to which you want to obtain the certificate. For example, in the case of Green Key, you can obtain the certificate at bronze, silver and gold level. In this, you will naturally go for gold so that you can show off your gold label!
The approval will be similar to an inspection: going down a list of all the actions you have taken.
Hard work pays off! Yes... it certainly does in this case. You have received your sustainability certificate. Time to steal the show with your certificate, update customers and potential customers about it and, in the longer term, recoup your costs from previous investments. Congratulations!
These were the 10 steps to sustainability certification.
Copyright - Worldmeetings | Disclaimer | Conditions | Privacy statement
