Create a policy

An environmental policy, sometimes called a sustainability policy, is a set of guidelines for your organisation around relevant environmental issues, such as energy use, travel, and waste. 

It can be useful for helping you to commit to environmental actions and making sure that your whole team is on board and working to the same standards. These commitments are what will help increase climate action and create a bigger response to the climate crisis – they are important. 

You do not have to put every item in your policy. The Checkup can help you decide what is realistically achievable for your organisation. While we would encourage you to do as much as possible to improve your sustainability, if you put it in your policy you need to be able to commit to doing it. If something is not currently possible, you can describe in your policy how you will work towards achieving it in the future (with a practical timescale). 

Remember to think about how this policy links with others you might have. We cannot think about climate action in isolation – everything impacts something else.

We've provided a template to give you a starting point. Add more, make changes, whatever works for you and your organisation - make it your own. It can be be used in conjunction with our Net Zero Checkup to identify priority areas for you to focus on.

Business Energy Scotland has a guide to creating an environmental policy, including sample policies.   

You may also want to look at:  

• Foundation Scotland's environmental policy
• SCVO’s environmental policy 
• Changeworks environmental policy