How to become a company with a low environmental impact?

The environmental impact has become an unavoidable issue in the economic development of companies. Whatever their activity, each company can cause pollution, even if it seems to be at lower risk. Thus, environmental risk management is a crucial issue for VSEs, SMEs, large groups and communities.

Today, awareness of the need to reduce impact is more important than ever, as part of the ongoing ecological transition. Do you want to know your company’s environmental footprint? We will provide you with the keys to better understand it and learn to calculate and reduce it.

What does the environmental impact of a company mean?

The environmental impact of a company refers to the effects that its activities have on the natural environment. It can have three main environmental impacts :

• To create the product, the company will extract natural resources such as energy, water, soil to create and potentially release waste during manufacturing and release harmful hazardous substances (noise, vibration, dust or gas).
• During the life cycle of a product, the transport of the product to its final consumer can lead to greenhouse gas emissions. Its use may require constant energy consumption or contain substances harmful to the environment.
• At the end of its life, the product cannot be properly recycled, it can create a new environmental problem by generating waste.

Key indicators to measure your company’s environmental impact

To measure the environmental impact of your business, you must take into account various indicators such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, waste generation, etc. In France, companies are constrained by the legal obligation of environmental reporting, a measure put in place by the Ministry of Ecological Transition that encourages companies to make commitments for the environment.

Thus, different structures now have the obligation to measure their environmental impact by making a balance of greenhouse gas emissions such as:

• Companies with more than 500 employees in metropolitan France
• Companies with 250 employees in the overseas regions
• Public legal entities with more than 250 employees and local authorities with more than 50,000 inhabitants who must carry out a GHG assessment accompanied by a transition plan.
  
  

In addition, organizations are encouraged to be transparent about the environmental impact of their products by indicating a note (A, B, C, D or E) to a product or service sold on the web as in store.

The tools that business leaders can use to measure the environmental impact of their structure are :

• The Environmental Impact Statement and the ISO 14031 standard which proposes a method for monitoring environmental performance.
• ISO 14064 and 14069 also provide tools for developing programs that focus on reducing GHG emissions.
• The carbon footprint calculation that estimates the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions generated by a company.
• Life cycle analysis or LCA can estimate the carbon impact of products. This makes it possible to know with precision the impact of a product throughout its life cycle, from production to end of life.
  
  
  

The benefits of reducing environmental impact 

• Improve the brand image by showing that the company is environmentally conscious.
• Reduce costs by reducing energy and raw material consumption.
• Open new markets by meeting the expectations of environmentally conscious consumers.
• Increase the satisfaction of your stakeholders, such as your customers, employees and investors.

How can you reduce your company’s environmental impact ?

There are several actions you can take to reduce your company’s environmental impact :

• Implement effective waste management by recycling, reducing and reusing raw materials.
• Opt for renewable energy sources such as solar or wind energy.
• Establish eco-responsible practices to reduce your water consumption and minimize air and water pollution. L'oréal has partnered with Gjosa to create Water Saver, a new technology that makes the sustainable use of water accessible to all.
• Make your employees and partners aware of environmental issues and involve them in the implementation of a sustainable environmental strategy. Several organisations propose this initiative such as the Fresque du climat and Ma petite planète.
  
  

• Reduce the consumption of resources used to produce
• Replacing non-renewable resources with more virtuous ones
• Reuse of raw materials or resources must become a basic principle and the consumption of new resources must be avoided
• Recycle waste produced or use recycled materials

Equip your employees with refurbished equipment :

• Significantly reduce equipment acquisition costs.
• Reduce electronic waste.
• Provide your employees with quality equipment at a lower cost, without compromising their efficiency.
• Maximize the life of their equipment. 
  
  

Dipli accompanies you in the management of your electronic equipment and has already managed to give a second life to 111 561 products, which has saved 2744 tons of CO2 and 8579 tons of raw materials.

As an ESS company committed to protecting the environment, we are proud of these results and we will continue to implement many actions to reduce our environmental impact.

You now have everything you need to reduce your environmental impact.