How Small Business Owners Can Get the Best from a Sustainability Consultancy

As an entrepreneur or owner of a small business or start-up, you may not have considered outsourcing sustainability. After all, isn’t sustainability something that needs to be integrated into the DNA of your business?

Sustainability: the next step in outsourcing

Small businesses routinely outsource vital, specialist functions to external consultants. Accountancy, IT, legal, logistics, recruitment, and marketing are some of the more common functions that are regularly outsourced, allowing small businesses to limit expensive overheads, use these services flexibly as demand requires, and focus on the core business.

Each of these functions is highly specialised, allowing small businesses to benefit from the skills and experience of trained practitioners. As sustainability moves from becoming a nice to have point of difference for business to an essential licence to operate, so too does it become a natural candidate for outsourcing. Using a sustainability consultant can help small businesses to increase revenue, boost customer numbers, decrease costs, improve brand reputation, manage risk, retain talent, and access investment.

What does a sustainability consultant do?

Sustainability is a broad term, covering environmental, social and financial subjects. The title of sustainability consultant therefore covers professionals working across a range of topics such as climate change, packaging, modern slavery, pollution, waste management, charitable giving, biodiversity, animal welfare and many more.

For businesses looking to improve their sustainability, a sustainability consultant can help to:

·        Collect and evaluate data

·        Identify and manage risks and opportunities

·        Set strategy, roadmap and goals

·        Engage stakeholders

·        Draft and communicate policy

·        Create and deliver training

·        Report progress internally and externally

What to look for in a sustainability consultant

Sustainability consultants can be generalists that cover abroad range of sustainability topics, or they can be specialists in a specific area of sustainability (such as environmental assessments for buildings). Smaller businesses drafting their sustainability strategy or implementing policy may want to consider using a generalist consultant that will be able to advise on a wide range of topics. If instead you are looking for assistance with a specific project in a highly technical field, a specialist in that area maybe more suitable.

How to get the best out of working with a sustainability consultant

If you have not worked with a sustainability consultant before, you may not know where to start. Information on the current level of sustainability of your business this can help better identify the services you need. At GB Sustainability, we have developed the Sustainable Business Scorecard to help you. By answering a few questions you can have a detailed report specific to your business in less than five minutes. It’s free and available here.

Once you understand your current business sustainability and where the opportunities for growth are, you are ready to set up a call with a consultant and explain your goals and aspirations.

Consider the level of support you require. Do you have just a few questions that you need answers to, or are you starting a project that will need managing and implementing? Or perhaps you need longer, on-going sustainability support across a range of sustainability topics, and are looking for a cost-effective alternative to an in-house sustainability team.

It is worth discussing these options with your consultant to best identify the most suitable arrangement for you.  

Good Business Sustainability

At Good Business Sustainability we pride ourselves on helping to make being green easier. We provide a broad range of sustainability consultancy services tailored to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and start-ups. GB Sustainability provides consultations, projects, and retainers across a range of sustainability topics and business sectors. If you are ready to consider taking on a sustainability consultant, why not set up a free initial exploratory call with one of our sustainability professionals today.

‍