28th Feb 2019
Of course, we spend most of our time talking about Green Hosting here, which makes sense I guess. But I thought it would be good to share the other ways we aim to help make a positive difference with our Green Hosting business too. Here are some of the things we do...
In our early days when we first set up back in 2004, the ethical business world was much smaller than it is now. However, we always knew that we only wanted to make money from clients who are doing positive things. Our ethical policy guides us and communicates the kinds of activities we do and do not support via our web services. The ethical policy still stands more than 14 years later and is still fundamental to our way of working. We just don’t want to make money from exploitative, cruel or careless companies and we’re sure our clients don’t want us to either.
We are extremely fortunate now to have many like-minded colleagues and a community of conscious brands around us, sharing good practice, supporting each other and working to make ethical business stronger and more mainstream.
Choosing responsible suppliers is important to us too. We bank with the Cooperative, use Ecotricity to power our office and the Green Stationery Company for any supplies we need. More recently we took out business insurance with Evergreen Insurance and this was new to us last year, which shows we're on a constant learning curve. For our IT equipment we choose energy efficient products and purchase from companies with ethical credentials when we can. All electrical equipment and lights are switched off when we aren't using them. Even though our electricity is from renewable sources, there's no need to waste it.
In the day-to-day running of our business travel is kept to a minimum and so is paper use, we just don't really need either of those things to provide our service. Sometimes its handy to write things down and so if we have notepads or notebooks they are made from scrap or recycled paper. The pens we buy are made from recycled materials too.
Most of our marketing is done online but if we need printed materials we choose a printer with environmentally friendly practices and products. We haven't had anything printed in a while but we recently discovered Hatch and so we might try them next time we do.
We have an environmental policy which goes into lots more detail if you'd like to read more.
We know that the technicalities of websites and web hosting can be daunting, especially when a business relies so heavily on their online presence and e-mails. So we aim to be kind in our approach and communication. Our clients reciprocate that kindness in lovely feedback, messages of support and spreading the word about us. It makes us feel really good!
With a view to hopefully making a difference in a more direct way, we work with community groups and positive projects that make us smile, providing services for free. Most recently we built the new Greens Windmill website, update it as volunteers and we power it with our wind powered hosting too. It gives us a real buzz to be able to do this and to get to know some really fantastic people and organisations.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Everything we do in our business reflects how we live our lives outside work. Like lots of other people we're increasingly more conscious and careful about what we eat, what we wear wear and what we buy (or rather don't buy). We're cutting down our plastic use, composting kitchen waste, planting flowers for pollinators and growing veggies, supporting charities, shopping locally, buying second hand, raising our awareness. We're a small business trying to do our best, we're know we're not perfect but we're always learning and working to do more.
Since we started out in 2004 our values of wanting to make a difference haven’t changed, but thankfully the business world around us has. It’s so wonderful to now be part of a much bigger movement of brands driven by the triple bottom line - people, planet and profit – and we’re excited by how much of a difference we can all make in the future.
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