Could today’s climate strike be an opportunity for your business?

Workers across the UK are joining a movement started by children, and striking to demand action against climate change today.

It sounds disruptive, but the worldwide event could be a way for businesses to demonstrate – to their employees and their customers – their commitment to tackle climate change.

The climate strikes, which began as one girl taking every Friday out of school to sit outside parliament, have grown in the last year to include school children and adult demonstrations all over the world.

How has your business been affected by the strikes, and how can you keep climate change-aware employees at work?

Firstly, your business can be an influential voice in creating measures to tackle climate change, because the department of business, not the department of the environment, is taking the lead on the problem.

The latest big statements from the government have come from the minister for business and the minister of energy and clean growth, formerly Devizes MP, Claire Perry, who is standing down as MP to concentrate on her new role as president of COP 2020, the UN convention on climate change.

Climate change is driven by green house emissions and energy consumption – or the burning of fossil fuels to create energy – drives a big chunk of the emissions.

Currently, the ways government is tackling emissions include tax at the fuel pump, which has been going since the 1980s, and the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), around since the mid-noughties.

There are also government business grants to improve energy efficiency, and tax breaks – they are about to slash company car tax to zero on electric cars.

And businesses need to consider how responding to climate change can be good for business in the long run. In his address to the North Wilts Sustainable Business Conference last year, Dr Nick Murry said, “The severe social and economic disruption that will result from inaction will impact businesses, their customers, and the people that work for them. ‘Business as usual’ is simply no longer an option.”

So what can your company do to show concerned employees your business cares about tackling climate change and want to reduce company emissions?

1. Appoint a climate change rep or committee. (Note: this is different to a general ‘environmental’ brief. Having a clear focus on climate change means it doesn’t get confused with litter picks and recycling – all very good but doesn’t have much effect on emissions.)
2. Investigate government grants to fund more efficient energy systems, insulation, air conditioning, etc and bear in mind energy efficiency if you move to or commission new premises, storage or factory (new build and concrete production are still big, but solvable, emitters)
3. Talk to a good accountant – like Purple Lime, Haines Watts, or Optimum – about VAT and tax incentives for energy efficient innovation.
4. Use electricity more efficiently with Demand Side Response (DSR) – delaying energy-intensive activities to times of the day when there is less demand on the energy grid: https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/2016/10/20/demand-side-response/
5. Switch to clean energy electricity, such as Good Energy.
6. Pledge to adhere to the UN sustainable development goals. TBL Services has free certificates to download: https://www.tbl-services.com
7. Work with a company such as the Carbon Trust to create a plan to get your business to Net Zero emissions.
8. Trees, meadows and peat bogs are still the best carbon capture – encourage your staff to raise money donate to the Woodland Trust, a local charity such as Wiltshire Wildlife, or to preserve a section of a rainforest – the world’s best carbon sink.
9. If you are contracting overseas, request the eco-credentials of the company from production through to transportation – it may seem obvious, but any emissions we are responsible for affects the world’s climate, no matter where they are released.
10. Run initiatives encouraging staff to walk or use public transport, bicycles, or electric bikes. Make time allowances for staff to get to meetings by public transport.
11. Write to or meet with your local MP or Chris Skidmore, minister of state for the department of business, energy and industrial strategy, and tell them your successes and challenges in tackling your business emissions, and what you need from government.
12. Publicise any initiatives to tackle climate change to your staff (and to the media like Business Biscuit) to keep them on side.
13. Take advice from HR on reassuring and motivating staff suffering from eco-anxiety https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b2e7ee32-ad28-4ec4-89aa-a8b8c98f95a5. Talk to Peter Jones at The HR Dept if you don’t have in-house HR.

Louisa Davison is a steering group member for Citizens’ Climate Lobby UK, lobbying for carbon fee and dividend – the most economically efficient solution to bringing down emissions and tackling climate change.