Environmental management systems

Our streamlined approach to environmental management systems is ideally suited to SMEs and many bigger businesses too.

A Green Small Business environmental management system will help you understand the environmental impacts of your business and put a clear framework in place to help manage them more effectively. It will be specific to your business. We do not believe in off-the-shelf approaches – every business is unique.

And it is all managed within our user-friendly portal, allowing you to update and track your progress in one place. It’s also packed with useful guidance and links to further resources to help you improve your environmental performance.

You can also use the portal to store data on other key metrics, such as your carbon footprint. And we will store all of your key documents here too – policy templates, Green Small Business certificate and anything else that we think you might find useful.

Access to the portal is free for all Green Small Business certified businesses.

An overview of the Green Small Business Portal

You have two options for preparing your environmental management system:

1. Let us do the work for you

If you choose this option, we will set up a voice or video call with you to conduct a light-touch but systematic review of the environmental impacts of your business.
We can also facilitate a staff workshop to gather ideas, build awareness and generate buy-in.
We will use the information gathered on the call to prepare a draft environmental policy and action plan for your business.
Our action plans are hosted on our interactive online platform, making it super-easy to keep on track and monitor your progress.
Once you are happy with it, we’ll provide you with 12 months Green Small Business certification (included in the price).
Click here to place your order and we will contact you straight away.

2. Do it yourself

The Green Small Business Handbook, is our free step-by-step guide, containing all the guidance you need to successfully create your own environmental management system. The handbook guides you through the process of preparing your Environmental Policy and Environmental Action Plan.
You can also purchase our ‘Making it Easy’ pack, containing templates and examples of environmental policies and plans for you to use and adapt to suit your business.
When you’re ready, we can also provide independent certification for your Green Small Business environmental management system.

person viewing the Green Small Business portal

Environmental management – why bother?

For many, the most important reason for thinking about the environmental impacts of their business is simply because it’s the right thing to do. However, clients and customers are increasingly demanding environmentally-friendly practices. Surveys suggest that staff also look for good practice on environmental issues when looking for an employer.

Grant funding bodies often require some form of environmental management as part of their criteria for awarding funding to businesses. And if you are going for B Corp status, you can increase your score by having an externally certified environmental management system in place.

Your business can save money by understanding and managing better how you use and dispose of energy, water, and other resources. A UK Government study found that certified environmental management systems delivered cost savings for the majority of small businesses.

If you run a small business, or other type of small organisation, your time is precious. Simply doing the basics can be a big enough challenge from day-to-day. Thinking about managing your environmental impacts may feel like a tall order, which is why Green Small Business provides a clear, simple framework and all of the resources you need.

“As an environmental business, measuring our carbon footprint was essential. We can now use our Environmental Action Plan to work towards reducing our footprint across all areas of the business. Tim is highly knowledgeable and great at tailoring the process to meet your business’ requirements.”

The meeting we had with Tim really got us forward thinking in many areas we hadn’t previously considered. He really helped us focus & think of new ideas for the Business to lower our carbon footprint as much as possible. We had started involving carbon information for our staff & learners – now we feel we can move this forward to a higher more informative level. Thanks for all your help!”

“Having a baseline number for the carbon footprint of our business allows us to measure changes that we make to reduce this. Without an actual figure, it is easy to think that what we are doing is lessening our environmental impact, when it may not be having the kind of impact we hoped. Being certified will show that we are serious in reducing the environmental impact of the business – not just ‘greenwashing’.”

“Green Small Business certification will help decrease both the company’s and supply chain’s carbon footprint and it provides the credentials to support and develop our environmental policy.”

“We’re at the start of our Carbon reduction journey and Tim has helped to guide us through our first footprint measurement. We now have a much better understanding of the process and the data we need to include in our footprint, he has also helped us to identify improvements we can make to get better data for future measurements.”

“Being Green Small Business certified means that when we approach funders we can demonstrate our commitment to the environment. This is something that most funders and grant-making organisations require now. If we couldn’t demonstrate this it’s highly likely we would lose funding opportunities to competitors.”

“Being a Certified Green Small Business is the perfect way for us to communicate our environmental commitment and credibility to clients, employees, and other stakeholders.”

“The Green Small Business process has been practical and helpful. The certification allows us to shout more loudly about all our efforts on sustainability.”

“We want to help our clients improve their own social footprint simply by using us as their catering partner. Being a certified Green Small Business supports our own credentials, and has helped us focus on certain aspects that we hadn’t considered previously.”

“The whole process was really smooth and simple and we are delighted with the results.”

“The Green Small Business approach gives us a structure to work with and aim for, rather than feeling the task of being green feeling too big to achieve and beyond our finances.”

“It was great to get some affirmation for our efforts up to this point. What we found useful was the extra research that Green Small Business did for us and pointing us in the right direction.”

“We decided to do it because it’s a good thing for the business and help save on costs. The process is really simple, straightforward and convenient”

Reuseabox