One of things I love about working for myself is that I can take a decision and then implement it, without having to hold a meeting, start a discussion with colleagues or wait for a ruling from someone more senior. Thus, I took an executive decision to add a line to my signature block saying what I was doing to be more ‘sustainable’ (I put that term in inverted commas because it’s such a weasel word!), and update it once a month. I thought that by changing the tag line regularly I would:
- force myself to constantly find new ways to reduce my environmental footprint
- have a wider impact, through sharing ideas with clients and colleagues (I think the commonly used message ‘Please consider the environment before printing this email’ has rather lost its impact)
- let people know that this is something that is important to me, in my business and home life.
My current message is ‘ This month, Hilary is reducing her footprint by going vegan at least one day a week’. I know that this will be a real challenge, because although I don’t eat much meat, I do use a lot of cheese and milk.