How many times have you read an article titled something like, ‘5 Ways You Can Be More Sustainable’, or ‘Tips for Implementing your CSR Strategy’?

Sometimes, these lists of actions can seem baseless. How do you know a certain action or strategy is having an impact? What is the most important action to take? How do you prioritise what to do first?

A way of reframing this thinking is basing your actions on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (you know, those goals we’re collectively meant to be meeting by 2030).

At C8, everything we do is guided by our enrichment areas. We’ve reframed our thinking around the impact we can have in these areas, and ultimately on the SDGs we’ve committed to contributing to.

 

 

Below is a list of actions, but not like you’ve seen before. Each action is linked to an SDG. By taking any of these actions, you can know for sure that you’re working towards meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and that’s pretty incredible!

Now, choosing which action to take first is entirely dependent on your business – what your goals are, your capacity and the impact you want to have. So, what are you waiting for?!

 

SDG 3: Good Health

Value the mental health and well-being of your staff. On top of our suite of health and wellbeing policies, we have implemented two unique initiatives. First, is My Virtual Mission, a fitness challenge that sees the team join forces to walk/cycle/paddle/run to certain locations – we’re currently making our way to Hong Kong! The second is free access to Uprise, a digital resilience app that teaches key stress-management skills and gives employees access to health and wellbeing counseling in real time.

 

SDG 4: Quality Education

Invest in the continued training and development of your staff. We’re always searching for ways to upskill our team, from hosting our own Lunch & Learn sessions in-house to attending external training and development workshops. Our most recent in-office training saw our social team join the Meta VideoCon to learn more about the format and creative best practices across all Meta platforms.

 

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

Use renewable energy in the office and help your employees understand their renewable electricity options for their own homes. Yes, it’s an incredible first step to ensure you’re powered with green electricity – we’re proudly supercharged with GreenPower – but taking it that one step further and helping your employees understand their options to #MakeTheSwitch to renewables is next (especially since they’re probably working from home throughout the week). Check out the Green Electricity Guide to find out how green your office and home electricity providers are, and make the switch if they’re not up to scratch!

 

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Create space for creativity, and encourage new ideas and innovation that work to make the world a better place. A way we prioritise creatively is by holding a monthly creative review with the social and design teams, focused on sharing the standout content we’ve created for our clients and social media trends we’ve seen emerge. This fosters creativity and innovation in our work and ensures we’re helping our clients enrich tomorrow by telling their brand stories in impactful ways. 

 

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities 

Transport is Australia’s third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, with the highest rate of growth. Encourage employees to use public transport, walk or carpool to the office where possible, to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint, reduce air pollution and contribute to a less congested city. 

 

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption

Monitor your waste in the office and develop waste reduction strategies that work for your team. Compost your food scraps, collect soft plastics and reduce, reuse and recycle!

 

SDG 13: Climate Action

Assuming you’ve taken our advice on using renewable energy in the office, and have helped your employees understand their renewable electricity options for their own homes, encourage meat-free days in the office. An additional meat-free day has benefits for health and the environment!

 

SDG 14: Life below Water

Say no to single-use plastic, and when necessary, dispose of waste properly (see ‘Responsible Consumption’). This is a cause close to our hearts; we developed the branding for Clean Oceans, a not-for-profit dedicated to stopping plastics from entering our oceans and waterways, with the mission of banning all single-use plastics on every Australian beach by 2025. 

 

SDG 15: Life on Land

Have an impact on your local community, learn more about urban agriculture, and get involved in local regeneration projects, or your local community garden. Our local council is the City of Sydney, which have a website full of information on where and how you can get involved.