How taking climate action in your business can be easy and help your bottom line

Sustainability is increasingly influencing customers’ purchasing decisions. According to a recent Cogo report, 75% of responding businesses believe that their customers are starting to prioritise sustainability over price, while a 2020 IBM study found that 71% of consumers say they would pay more for brands that are sustainable. 

Help the planet, help your business

That same Cogo report found that more than half (53%) of Australian businesses think their competitors are taking climate action, and it’s easy to see why. Implementing sustainability practices in your business can help:

• Attract employees. KPMG research reveals that 70% of employees are more likely to want to work for a company that has a “strong green footprint.”
• Build and maintain brand trust. Amongst customers, peers and the wider market, improving sustainability practices can improve the trust in your business. 
• Access capital. It’s becoming easier for more sustainable businesses to access investments and capital.
• Improve your bottom line. Saving power, reducing water usage and cutting carbon emissions can cut operational costs in your business. 

Given these factors, having a clear sustainability policy and making climate-friendly decisions in your operations simply makes good business sense. 

However, if you’re a small business, knowing where to start when investing in sustainability might feel like an up-front resource and time cost that you can’t afford. Fortunately, there are low to no- cost specialty apps that can make it easy to automate, streamline and even recommend sustainability tasks to help small businesses operate more in line with their values — and those of their desired customers and employees. 

Better yet, many of them can integrate directly with your key accounting software to give you a complete view of your business and clearly show the impact your decisions have on your bottom line.

Differentiating your business and gaining a competitive edge

Most individuals hold personal beliefs about sustainability and the environment, and these values are increasingly reflected in the way individuals are running their small businesses in Australia. 

“Coming out of a global pandemic has probably made a lot of us realign and refocus on what we really want in our lives,” says Sarah Lawrance, founder and CEO of Hot Toast, an accounting and bookkeeping agency for creative industries. “For me, business is the best way that I can do that.”

Lawrance constantly thinks about how her business can make an impact beyond focusing on the bottom line.

“That can be environmental and have a social benefit. I think it’s really important that we’re working towards something more than dollars and cents, especially in the accounting and bookkeeping space.”

How to leverage technology for sustainability

While Lawrance has always had an eye on accountability and transparency in business, when it comes to eco-friendly actions, she’s found that something as simple as an app can deliver incredible benefits across the value chain.

“A great one we have been using and loving at the moment is Cogo’s Business Carbon Manager, which integrates with the Xero platform and measures our carbon footprint,” Lawrance says.

“One feature that I really appreciate is that it will look at your industry’s average for carbon emissions and show you exactly where you sit along that line. Then, with a light touch, it will offer some recommendations about how you can potentially reduce your footprint.”

Lawrance says using Cogo’s app has been extremely beneficial for getting her whole team focused on the long-term outcomes of integrating sustainable practices in the business. 

“Especially for accountants, we want to see the specific numbers and the targets so we can know how to move towards them,” she says. “Cogo lets us log in and see that. As long as we can evolve with the team and get their buy-in, then it becomes a lot easier for us to achieve our sustainability goals.”

Four apps to get you started

Looking for help executing on your small business’s sustainability values? Here are four Xero-integrated sustainability apps that can help keep track of your business’s carbon footprint and more: 

• Cogo’s Business Carbon Manager: Calculates your carbon footprint based on your business expenses, and provides insights that you can share with customers and stakeholders.
• NetNada: Provides accurate carbon-footprint measurements, detailed sustainability reports, advice on eco-friendly initiatives – and automates carbon accounting and reporting tasks.
• Evalue8 Sustainability: Links financial accounts to enable carbon measurements, minimise data entry, identify areas for energy savings, and track your progress towards becoming clean and green.
• CarbonInvoice: Analyses sales data and offsets emissions for every invoice you send, easily showing clients the steps you’re taking to limit carbon emissions. 

By connecting sustainability apps as part of your suite of integrations with Xero, you can develop a more robust environmental policy for the benefit of not just your bottom line and your clients, but the world around you.

Making data-driven change

Data is power when making business decisions. And for sustainability-based business decisions, this is especially true. 

“When we’re talking about measuring emissions or wanting to contribute on an environmental level, it all comes back to data,” Lawrance says. For her, the fact that Cogo integrates with her existing business data in Xero is part of what makes the app so powerful. 

“Xero is phenomenal for that,” she says. “In terms of tracking and making sure we have really clean data, Xero is our cornerstone.”

Head to the Xero App Store to find, try and buy apps designed to make taking climate action and proving impact in your business easier. You can compare app listings and read real-time reviews from verified Xero customers to find the apps that will best suit your business. Plus, log in with your Xero account and get your data connected to new apps in just a few clicks

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