As an accredited Living Wage employer, we’ve been asked to explain what it meant for us and why we thought it was important. Our answer was published in the Wire (the Living Wage newsletter in April) along with our proud team picture!

The article read as below.

Beyond Green was created in 2008 and in their own words: “We go one step beyond to support all organisations to integrate sustainability with their current activities and future projects. Being attentive to client needs allow us to help them reduce costs, improve performance, manage risk, and demonstrate sustainable practice.”

In alignment with their value of fairness, regardless of cost pressure, they became an accredited Living Wage employer in November 2015.

Beyond Green are on a journey and are focused on making positive change easier by inspiring everyone to create a sustainable world.

Beyond Green told us that “At the end of 2017 we went beyond business as usual by introducing a share option scheme, where every employee now holds real shares in the organisation.”

Asked to tell us a bit about how these things worked at Beyond Green, Lisa Bertrand (Operations and Communications Director) told us “Similar to creating our mission statement, we adopted an open, inclusive and interactive process to create our strategy for 2018. Working individually and as a team, we connected an individual’s skills and their aspirations to develop new skills with tactical projects. The outcome is that it each team member is clear how they contribute to delivering the strategy and ultimately achieve the business goal. We learned how different parts of the business and projects connect and gave the whole team clarity, ambition and a sense of ownership and responsibility.

We debriefed that process as a team and took some actions forward which will improve how will build our strategy next year, and the understanding of the process and its outcome and help people come prepared with some thoughts.

Finally, we trialled a number of techniques to facilitate the activities, which we are looking forward to sharing when we deliver sustainability strategy workshops for our clients and beyond!”

Living Wage accreditation chimes with Beyond Greens’ Sustainable Development Goals of reducing inequalities. But they told us it makes business sense too “many tenders are asking about the Living Wage and our accreditation demonstrates that our values are real.”

Beyond Green celebrates sustainable development at the VIBES Scottish Environment Business Awards.

Vision in Business for the Environment of Scotland (VIBES)
The annual VIBES Awards are a highlight on the calendar for businesses that contribute to the environment and the sustainable development of Scotland.

Now in their 18th year, the prestigious Awards are run by a partnership including the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Scottish Government, Energy Saving Trust, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Scottish Water, Zero Waste Scotland and the 20:20 Climate Group.

Having supported our clients at previous VIBES Awards, we decided it was time to seek recognition for our own achievements! VIBES provides a great opportunity to demonstrate how we are inspiring others and being a catalyst for change. We wanted to share Beyond Green story, showcasing our team’s impact and commitment ‘beyond the office’.

Supporting Green Teams
We were particularly delighted to be shortlisted for the Green Team Award as it recognises ‘the importance of working as a team to deliver environmental improvements’. This is right at the heart of the Beyond Green approach, both internally and in how we support and work with the teams of our clients and partners. As our literature states, we ‘believe collaboration is the way to deliver success’ and we make sure that clients view us as team members rather than consultants.

Micro Businesses making a difference
Being selected as a finalist in the Micro Business Award was a wonderful achievement – it’s a competitive category, where we were pleased to be alongside a wide range of companies achieving great things with less than ten employees.

Achieving success in the VIBES Awards has encouraged us to be more confident in spreading the word about our how we do business – from proposing innovative methods and new tools, to using Sustainable Development Goals to facilitate successful employee engagement.

We’re proud to say that Beyond Green is dedicated to helping organisations become more sustainable, saving you money while reducing your impact on the environment. If this has inspired you, get in touch to find out how we can help your business.