Green Gorilla UK - We are responsible

Green Gorilla: A Responsible Business

Introduction

At Green Gorilla, we don’t just talk the talk

We are passionate about not only working with sustainability-focused businesses, but also about being one ourselves. And, like every business which tries to operate responsibly knows, it’s a journey.

On this page you can read about the various actions we take and the initiatives we are involved in to try and make Green Gorilla a responsible business that operates as sustainably as possible. We’ll be sure to keep this page updated regularly, so that you can stay up to date with everything we’re doing.

Green Gorilla and The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The SDGs provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future

While we are obviously supportive of each and every one of the 17 goals, there are four that are particularly pertinent to our vision and mission here at Green Gorilla.

Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning

Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

These four SDGs help to better articulate our bigger vision here at Green Gorilla, which is to make sustainability accessible to everyone. That’s what it’s all about.

Yes, training and coaching sustainability professionals is one of the ways we do that, but that’s just a delivery method for our bigger vision.

Any business can use the SDGs as a guiding light on their journey to operating more sustainably for the benefit of people and the planet.

Our starting point here at Green Gorilla is to create an in-house Environmental Management System (EMS). Having an EMS will provide us with a framework through which our environmental performance can be monitored, improved and controlled. It will also make it considerably easier for us to set some key performance indicators (KPIs) around the four goals listed above.

To learn more about the Sustainable Development Goals, please click here

Environmental Responsibility

We recognise that we have a responsibility to the environment beyond legal and regulatory requirements

We are committed to reducing our environmental impact and continually improving our environmental performance as an integral part of our business strategy and operating methods, with regular review points. We will encourage customers, suppliers and other stakeholders to do the same.

You can read about our Environmental Policy in detail, but here are some of the highlights in a more visually engaging way.

1. General Aims

We will always endeavour not only to comply with all relevant regulatory requirements but to exceed them. This isn’t just a tick-box exercise for us!

To ensure we are doing as well as possible, we will continually monitor our environmental performance and impacts and seek to improve however we can.

2. Paper

We don’t print anything unless absolutely necessary. Even if a client asks us to print something, we will ask them if it is definitely required before doing so. Whenever possible, we buy FSC certified paper products and recycled > recyclable versions of goods.

3. Energy

We strive to be as energy-efficient as possible, which includes always switching off lights and equipment when not in use and adjusting the heating with energy consumption in mind. Furthermore, we always consider the energy consumption and energy efficiency of any new electrical equipment we need to purchase. Finally, we purchase our energy from Bulb, the UK’s biggest provider of renewable electricity from solar, wind and hydro.

4. Office Supplies & General Purchasing

All environmental and social factors are taken into consideration with regards to the purchasing of office supplies and other equipment. If we can rent or borrow a piece of equipment instead of buying a new item, we will. We seek to always buy from reputable, sustainable suppliers of goods, such as B Corporations. And we always evaluate the ethical labour practices of our purchases by checking for slave labour statements, etc.

5. Travel & Transport

No rockets in sight! (Well, not yet anyway!). At Green Gorilla, we only travel when absolutely necessary, and that is nearly always using public transport and bicycles. But thanks to our online approach to the way we deliver our services, travel is kept to an absolute minimum. We always try to have phone calls or video calls instead of in-person meetings, and our core service lines are fully online courses and programmes.

6. Monitoring & Improvement

In our endeavours to continually improve and exceed all regulatory requirements, we will:

• Constantly monitor our environmental performance
• Continually seek to reduce our environmental impacts
• Incorporate environmental factors into business decisions
• Increase employee and contractor environmental awareness through training
• Review our Environmental Policy on a monthly basis
• Involve all of our staff in the reviewing and implementation of the policy

Once again, you can read our Environmental Policy in detail here.

Giving Back

We strive to make positive contributions to the planet and society.

We are delighted to announce our commitment to being carbon-neutral via Ecologi, which invest in tree planting and projects that remove more greenhouse gasses than our own carbon footprint puts in. Trees are true miracles of nature and many scientists say they play a pivotal role in combatting manmade climate change. Anything we can do to support global reforestation efforts is right up our street!

Additionally, we are a B1G1 Business for Good, meaning that:

When we sell a copy of SustainABLE, we give 365 days of access to clean drinking water for people via solar-powered reverse osmosis.
When a new client signs up for our courses, we plant 3 trees to nurture the environment and save orangutans in Borneo.
When a new corporate client chooses to work with us, we sponsor 20 days of training for children.
When a woman joins one of our Women in Sustainability Herts events, we give 5 days of access to health awareness sessions.

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Charities / Local Community

We provide community-level support to schools by delivering sustainability education workshops. We are also involved with our local sustainability charity, Sustainable St Albans, through which we collaborate with other members and groups and provide workshops to local children about sustainability. Topics covered so far include climate change and food waste.