17th Aug 2022
Whether you're starting up a new business or making changes to how you already work, there are certain services you will always need or find incredibly useful.
We've been around for a while, so we've found some great services along the way. Here's a round up, some are our clients, some are services we personally use and some just look really good. Let us know if there are any you would recommend.
Green Stationery Co
We have been using the Green Stationery Company since day one (that's nearly 18 years ago). With their impeccable customer service, they supply everything we could have possibly needed for our office. On top of that, they really care about having as little impact on the environment as possible. Check out their 'About' page to find out what they say.
greenstat.co.uk
Ethical Revolution
Sam, founder of Ethical Revolution, is one of our Green Hosting clients and this service is incredibly clever. As well as providing a wealth of knowledge about ethical products and services, Ethical Revolution has a directory of ethical companies and a bank of discount codes for those companies (Green Hosting is included of course). You can also search for books from ethical shops as an alternative to Amazon.
ethicalrevolution.co.uk
Libraries of Things - Share & Elmbridge Community Eco Hub
As we have our beloved public libraries in the towns and cities of the UK, I feel we should have as many libraries of things too. What an amazing way to tackle waste, by simply borrowing the things we only need to use occasionally rather than buying them. Often, items in the library have been donated by the public too and the prices are lower than traditional hire shops (and/or there's a membership fee to contribute to costs like maintenance, insurance etc). Green Hosting clients Share Frome and Elmbridge Eco Hub stock a range of items such as tools, cleaners and events equipment. Do you have a library of things in your town?
sharefrome.org elmbridgeecohub.org.uk
Ethical Consumer
We have referred to Ethical Consumer time and time again when looking to buy goods or services for both home and business. This massive resource provides a wealth of detailed information about companies and how they score when it comes to various ethical issues (such as environment, people and politics). There are often surprises in there too so always worth checking! Their membership is very reasonably priced in our opinion too.
ethicalconsumer.org
We founded our business with a bank account with The Co-operative Bank all those years ago. Their customer-led ethical policy really is inspirational (see our article about our own ethical policy) and we believe they genuinely care about the planet, people and community as they say. Some of our clients use other, newer ethical banking services such as Starling, Triodos and Unity Trust which look great too.
We shopped around a little for our business insurance in the past few years. We found a company we really liked and have stayed with them, not just because of their ethical credentials but because of their helpful, friendly and professional customer service. They are Evergreen Insurance Services, a broker that donates a percentage of their commission to one of their many conservation and animal support charity partners. Other options that we looked at were Naturesave and The Co-op business insurance.
Good accountants are worth their weight in gold, dealing with the complexities of tax returns, PAYE and everything else that allows you to get on with earning the money. Green & Moore is a vegan and environmentally friendly business. David, the founder explains on their website how they work in a green and ethical manner. Kathleen Moss specialises in accounting services for charities. Both are Green Hosting clients.
Finding and expressing your unique business voice, whether through good marketing support or copywriting services, can make all the difference. Here are some Green Hosting clients who provide those services:
The Ethical Copywriter - Rachel is a freelance copywriter for ethical and sustainable brands. She cares about helping the right businesses make money. Read The Ethical Copywriter origin story.
Cocoon Communications - Katie provides conscious marketing communications for eco friendly and sustainable brands. Read the Cocoon Communications origin story.
Melissa Hobson - Copywriting and PR for people protecting the ocean. As a certified scuba instructor Melissa has a specific interest in caring for marine life.
Caitlin Job - Copywriter & French to English translator specialising in ecotourism, ethical marketing and international development.
Mission Mango - Marketing, consulting and coaching for socially conscious and ethically engaged entrepreneurs
Communicating your brand through visual media enhances anything we can say in words, whether that's in the form of illustrations, iconography or video. These Green Hosting clients have you covered:
Thoughts Make Things - Our colleague of many years (and our dear friend), Lydia provides illustration, art direction and design in the most thoughtful way. Take a look at her portfolio to see packaging and merchandise design, print and digital work, icon creation and her own personal projects.
Kiakari - A photographer, artist, designer, writer and editor with twenty years' experience to a range of clients.
Rob Bartlett - On a mission to do good with design, via icons and pictograms and with equality, diversity and inclusion front of mind.
Fuzzfox - Ethical video productions helping businesses, charities and non-profits raise awareness of their brand and engage their audience.
Puffin digital - Graphic design, logos, brand creation, web design and digital marketing. Transforming ideas into beautiful, eye-catching designs!
360events - Providing specialist services relating to the technical and creative requirements of branding agencies, marketing companies and event organisers.
Then there are those specialists who support you as an entrepreneur to learn the personal and professional skills to develop your ethical business further. Here are a range of those experts, all Green Hosting clients:
#Ethical Hour - We have been members of the #EthicalHour community since it was first founded by the brilliant Sian. It is a network and a wealth of resources 'to unite the most vibrant, supportive and sustainable community of changemakers on the internet'.
Kenekt - Connecting climate action with people and business through a range of services including pro bono support for charities and community projects.
Thinking Outside - Nature based-coaching and development including retreats and networking walks (or 'netwalks') to facilitate thinking.
Ethical Sales - B2B sales partners for purpose-driven business. Look out for their free sales resources and best practice examples for ethical businesses.
Laura Bartlett - For those at the beginning of a new journey, an Executive Coach helping people find their purpose and achieve their ambitions.
Rebecca Nestor - Supporting those facing the climate crisis through workshops and climate cafes, coaching and organisational consultancy.
Welsh Mill Hub - A shared work space and community venue for Frome including office space, remakery space, venue hire and events.
Edventure - Edventure in Frome run courses, events and programmes in community entrepreneurship. A place to build skills, community and confidence to grow a kinder, fairer, greener world.
27th Jul 2022
This year the Cooperative Bank are celebrating their 150th anniversary and 30 years since they formed their original customer-led ethical policy. This policy meant that they would refuse banking services to businesses involved in certain social and environmental issues. Around 12 years later (in 2004) we founded our web design business, Make Hay Ethical E-media and a year later Green Hosting. We had already decided that we wanted to run our business responsibly and with care for people, animals and the planet and inspired by the Cooperative Bank decided to implement an ethical policy too.
We haven't been around as long as the Coop but we do have a few (18 to be precise) years under our belts. To this day our ethical policy is still one of the most important aspects of our business. In our ethical policy we highlight the type of work we love to support as well as the practices we will not engage with via our services. This is not about judgement but about focussing our efforts on work that has a positive impact.
We believe there are other valuable reasons for implementing an ethical policy. A publically published ethical policy holds you accountable to your words and as a business owner the buck stops at you to ensure those words are actually actions. We ask our clients to agree to our ethical policy before signing up to our services as we do not wish to earn money from exploitative practices. This means our customers can also feel confident that they are not paying their hard-earned money to a company that profits from irresponsible or unethical business.
The list of issues in our ethical policy demonstrates our priorities and guides our work. You might wonder how necessary this is for a small business such as ours but in the early days we were approched on seperate occassions to work for companies linked to the fossil fuel industry and horse racing. We of course declined immediately. These days we are more well known for our ethos and customer base and such enquiries are not as likely. However it doesn't make our ethical policy any less relevant and acts as a means of continually provoking thought for ourselves as we continually learn and hopefully for others.
Is there anything you feel we should add to or change in our ethical policy? Do you have an ethical policy and what does it mean for your business? We'd love to hear from you.
11th May 2022
On this year’s Earth Day we talked about how we have decided to invest more of our time in asking those who have the biggest influence and impact to do more for our planet and the life upon it. We do this already in a more organic way but I want it to be more effective, build it into the structure of our day and have a focus.
The two main areas where we have chosen to concentrate our efforts are clean energy (for obvious reasons) and nature because we know by now that when we care for nature, nature cares for us.
The first campaign we are supporting is Nature for Everyone, brought to our attention by Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. #NatureforEveryone is about equal access to green spaces near to people’s homes. There is a huge disparity between who can and cannot easily benefit from the positive impact that natural environments have on our wellbeing and we agree with the Wildlife Trusts and 60+ other organisations that this needs to change. Many studies have shown that living close to nature and even views of nature from a window can support our physical and mental health, it can reduce crime and conflict in neighbourhoods and help children to learn. Everyone should have a legal right to nature and whilst the government are talking about their ‘Levelling Up’ plans and will be implementing new laws this is a great time to tell them that easy access to nature is vital for good quality of life.
So as a start to support this campaign we have:
We will continue to follow and support this campaign as it progresses. Would you consider supporting it too?
Find out more about it at:
The Wildlife Trusts
Wildlife and Countryside Link
1st Nov 2021
COP26 is officially underway. Now is the time that we want to see world leaders make real commitments to reducing carbon emissions. Amongst other means, two proposed measures to achieve this are to accelerate the phase-out of coal and encourage investment in renewables.
There will need to be some bold pledges from those in power, and waiting for them to take action can leave us feeling a little powerless. However, as we know, every change can make a difference.
In our world of web design and website hosting, we know of a few ways that small changes to our online activities can collectively have a big, positive impact.
Here’s what we all can do:
Why should we do these things?
Despite the internet appearing to be an intangible thing, it is very much made up of physical resources and consumes huge amounts of energy, 24 hours a day. Read more about this in our previous articles...
How using Green Hosting can help reduce carbon emissions and exercise consumer influence
Reducing Waste in Our Digital Lives
17th Sep 2021
Those who know us know that we are always looking for ways to make more positive changes to the services we provide and the way we do business. This runs from the suppliers we choose to the way we support our clients.
More recently we have been looking at how we market our services and how we can ensure that we aren't partaking in unethical practices. This is where the Ethical Move Comes in.
The Ethical Move aims to change the way that businesses sell and customers consume, to break the cycle of consumerism. Some businesses use tactics to convice customers to buy things they don't really need and that isn't doing anyone any good, least of all the planet.
So The Ethical Move have created a pledge for businesses to take and we have taken it too. We haven't needed to make any adjustments to our marketing practices as these are things we already do but it is great to have them in writing and to 'wear' our The Ethical Move badge!
1) Charm pricing
We pledge to continue to use round numbers and not 'charm prices'.
2) Countdowns
We pledge to not use countdown timers to drive a sale.
3) False scarcity
We pledge to be honest about availability.
4) Lead magnets
We pledge to be transparent in our email list building.
5) Bait and switch
We pledge to deliver the value we promise pitch-conscious.
6) Woke washing
We pledge to not use social issues to leverage our marketing.
7) Secret recipe
We pledge to not make false promises in our sales and marketing.
Like any development and progression in business we anticipate that there will be more ways that we can improve over time. This pledge isn't the end and it isn't set in stone.
You can find out more about the aims of The Ethical move here and details of the pledge here.
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