Drafting an environmental policy is a valuable way for a company to clarify its commitment to managing its environmental impact. It can also serve as a valuable component of your ESG toolbox.
An environmental policy can help provide a vision for employees to understand their roles and responsibilities. It can also help improve company decisions, reduce costs, and improve efficiency across the organisation.
Promoting an environmental policy can also help improve relationships with customers and suppliers that want to see a commitment to sustainability.
What is an environmental policy?
An enviromental policy sets out a business’ aims and principles with regard to managing the environmental effects of its operations. It outlines the measures that an organisation is taking or has pledged to take with regard to the effect of their activities on the environment, particularly measures that are designed to reduce harmful effects of their activities on environmental ecosystems.
What is included in an environmental policy?
There is no standard content and each policy should be relevant to the particular organisation that’s writing it, including the organisation’s activities, priorities, and concerns. Organisations should perform an environmental assessment which will hopefully identify the main environmental issues that are relevant to their specific business, and write the policy based on that. An environmental policy should include a statement on the organisation’s objectives with regard to reducing the way they manage the environmental effects of their operations. For example, a policy might include the following:
- Information about the organisation’s operations
- A statement of commitment by the organisation to improve their environmental performance, including reducing their pollution, their carbon footprint, and managing their environmental impacts.
- A statement about the organisation’s expectations regarding environmental issues from suppliers and contractors
- A statement of intention to at the very least comply with local regulations
- A statement on what your organisation does to educate and train employees in environmental issues and the impact of their activities
- A statement about how your organisation monitors its progress on environmental aims and targets on a regular basis
- A commitment from the organisation to communicate its environmental aims to staff, customers, investors and external stakeholders.
Who is responsible for writing the environmental policy?
The environmental policy should be written by someone who has an understanding of the business and its runnings and should be signed and backed by senior management.
Should your business create an environmental policy?
Creating an environmental policy can have significant value for a business and benefit internal operations as well as brand reputation. Having an environmental policy in place will help ensure your business complies with environmental legislation and that your organisation takes the necessary steps to reduce waste and environmental impact both with regard to materials and energy usage within your operations. In addition, having a policy will help ensure employees are informed about their environmental roles and responsibilities.
In order to create an effective environmental policy, you should first assess where your business currently stands in terms of its environmental activities. It may be worth outlining the company’s history of environmental decisions, its current carbon footprint, and the main challenges the company faces.
Create your own Sustainability Policy in just 20 minutes with VinciWorks’ Template
Creating an environmental policy has never been easier than now with VinciWorks’ environmental policy template. You can easily customise the template to fit the needs of your organisation. The template features a brief overview of the subject and guides readers through the policy, clarifying such points as the goal of the policy, who in the organisation is responsible for the policy, and who it applies to. There are also statements and explanations about the natural environment and an organisation’s assets, sustainable travel, waste and recycling and sustainable procurement. In addition, the template includes a statement about an organisation’s duty to the wider world, a section on information technology and sustainability, and guidance for training and staff involvement.
What should an environmental policy look like?
There is no single standard format for crafting an environmental policy, but there are several best practices to follow:
- The document should be short, ideally no longer than a single page.
- The policy should clearly state the organisation’s objectives.
- The policy needs to make sense in terms of the wider objectives of the business. There is no point in creating targets for waste reduction or new behaviours if these are going to detract from the overall function and performance of the business. Key factors to consider include cost and risk reduction and PR and sales benefits.
- It should be displayed publicly and online, and should be easy for everyone to read and understand.
- It should be realistic, achievable and relevant to the company’s activities.
- It should include the signatures of the company’s leadership to show their personal buy-in of the plan.
In order to create an effective environmental policy, you should first assess where your business currently stands in terms of its environmental activities. It may be worth outlining the company’s history of environmental decisions, its current carbon footprint, and the main challenges the company faces.
It may also be worthwhile to conduct a benchmarking exercise to establish how your company compares against similar businesses.
What should an environmental policy do?
A good environmental policy should contain brief statements on the company’s plans to:
- Continually improve environmental performance
- Manage its environmental impact
- Manage expectations regarding suppliers and other value chain links
- Comply with relevant environmental legislation
- Educate employees regarding the environmental effects of their activities
- Continue monitoring and review of its environmental performance on a regular basis
Specific challenges you may want to address could include:
- Transportation
- Efficient use of energy and water
- Recycling packaging materials
- Minimising waste
- Use of environmentally-friendly materials
- Industry-specific legislation and standards
- And other company-specific topics
You should make sure to keep your environmental policy updated with regular policy reviews and reports on the progress of key performance indicators. You should also make sure that the policy is adapted as consensus positions in the scientific and business communities evolve.
Creating and maintaining a well-crafted environmental policy can be an invaluable tool for a company to convey its sustainability objectives to employees, investors, suppliers, and customers. As more and more companies seek to improve their ESG performance, formulating an environmental policy is an important early step.
Environmental Policy Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to have any particular expertise to use the guide and write our environmental policy?
The great thing about the template is that it enables basically anyone in the organisation to write and use the policy. As it is easy to use and understand, it can be adapted and used by CEOs, office managers, general staff, and interns alike.
Is the environmental policy template in this guide applicable to any type of business?
Yes, the template is general enough to be used in a wide variety of industries and businesses including office-based organisations, manufacturing, the hospitality industry, the retail industry, and more. Also, it is fully adaptable, allowing you to customise the template to be even more specifically applicable to your business.
Are the environmental policy templates country specific?
No, the template can be used universally.
How long will it take for me to use the templates and create an environmental policy?
We’d estimate that generally a policy can be created using the template in up to 20 minutes.
We need an environmental policy for a piece of work we are pitching, will this guide give us what we need?
Yes, the guide will cover the requirement for an environmental policy as part of a proposal. Using the template to create a policy will not only help you create a great policy quickly, but also ensure that you have a rich, genuine guide to use both for proposals and tenders and as an internal guide for your business.
