How Small Businesses Can Help Save The Planet

Saving The Planet Is The Responsibility Of Everyone

Change won't happen by itself and it's not just the Government that needs to take action. Not just Big Business either. Or Greta Thunberg. Everyone!

The UN certainly recognised this quite some time ago. They developed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that acts as a 'blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all'. 2030 is only 10 years away and there's a huge amount of change needed. We are now in the 'Decade of Action' - a time for accelerating our efforts to tackle very real issues from poverty and gender equality to climate change and closing the finance gap.

The planet and the human race is not as bullet proof as we think - we can't take it for granted. Unprecedented events like the Coronavirus make this very real. Ironically - it is said that you can now hear the birds again in Wuhan after so many years of noise. In Northern Italy, the air pollution has dropped significantly. With crisis often comes extreme action, but we need this sort of action from everyone, all the time, if we are to meet the 2030 targets. 

3 Ways that Small Businesses can play a BIG Part

There are 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals that are very relevant for Small Business in particular:

1. Sustainable Cities and Communities

2. Responsible Consumption and Production

Unless you are in the service industry, production will be a critical aspect of running a Small Business. As companies scale they will often need to outsource the production process and this is where better assurance is needed, especially if this is done overseas. 

Ethical Production (avoiding child labour for example) is hugely important, but it's not always easy to audit especially if travel budgets are limited. This may even mean that prices are more expensive - BUT the good news is that consumers are becoming more and more savvy and care about the origin of materials and production so doing the right thing here can be advantageous in the long run. 

3. Life Below Water

Plastic in the ocean is a HUGE problem. There's absolutely no debate. And Small Businesses can help quite easily - by swapping out single use plastics for more eco-friendly solutions. Packaging is certainly the biggest offender here. Why not use cardboard instead for example? Simple. 

What is Drift Sleepwear Doing To Help?

Our sleepwear is made from natural fibres (no synthetic fabrics), we use 100% cotton which is more of an earth friendly choice, at the end of its life cotton will naturally decompose much quicker than synthetic fabrics do. 

We adopt ethical production practices and only work with small quantities to control quality, minimise risk and keep our carbon footprint low. 

Our orders are packed in reusable branded cloth bags, wrapped in 100% recycled tissue paper and sent out in recyclable boxes secured with paper tape.

There are always more ways to be more sustainable as a business and we are constantly looking to improve our sustainability practices. One of our future goals is to introduce a fully organic cotton sleepwear collection.

This may be a small contribution in the scheme of things - but it all adds up. 

You can learn more about our Sustainability Policy here.  

How You Can Help

If you are interested into how you can play your part. Check out 'The lazy person's guide to saving the world' below:

https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/takeaction/

Let's do this!

Finally, would you like to read more interesting articles and blog posts about mens sleepwear and pyjamas and sleeping? Then head over to Our Blog!