Launching on Earth Day 2026 – because it felt right, not because it was easy.
I’ve been sitting on this for a while. Not because I don’t care, far from it, but because writing a Sustainability Policy as a one-person, work-from-home marketing business felt like an exercise in awkwardness at best, virtue-signalling or just plain greenwashing at worst. What would it even say? I don’t have a fleet of company vehicles or a factory floor. My commute is about twelve steps to my desk. On the surface, my environmental footprint looks reassuringly small.
But that’s exactly the kind of thinking I was realising was actually rather complacent and not looking deeply enough. And the more I looked, the more I realised.
Getting informed
Over the past year or so, I’ve invested time in beginning to inform myself: reading, taking training and sitting with uncomfortable questions. It quickly became clear that one of the biggest yet most under-estimated challenges for a service-based business like mine is the environmental impact of the digital tools we use every day. AI assistants, cloud platforms, data storage – they are not resource neutral. The servers that power them consume enormous amounts of energy and water. A single AI-generated response has a carbon cost. It’s not a reason to stop using these tools, but it is a reason to use them thoughtfully and to be honest about it rather than pretend the laptop on my desk exists in a clean, consequence-free bubble.
I want to be clear about my motivation for publishing this policy because I think it matters: this is not a marketing-motivated move. If potential clients see it and feel reassured, that’s a genuine bonus, but it isn’t why I wrote it. I wrote it because it’s important to me and it felt like time to say so. Values I hold privately but don’t act on publicly aren’t really values, they’re just preferences.
Publication today
So today – Earth Day 2026 – I’m publishing my Sustainability Policy. It covers the commitments that are realistic and meaningful for a business my size: how I think about the technology I use, how I manage energy for my home (office) and how I plan to keep learning and reviewing what I do. It isn’t perfect and I’m not going to pretend it is; it’s a work in progress (like all effective policies should be) and it’s a start.
What could you do?
If you’re a small business owner reading this, I’d encourage you to consider something similar. You don’t need a dedicated sustainability team or a corporate framework. You need curiosity, a bit of honest reflection and the willingness to write it down. Every pledge counts. Every action adds up. The small businesses in Hampshire collectively have more reach and influence than we probably give ourselves credit for.
You can read my full Sustainability Policy here. I’d love to know your thoughts.