Having well formulated goals that give a business direction and provide a way to measure progress is useful when trying to improve practices and their sustainability. Goals should be clear, so that everyone in the business knows where it is heading and the steps that are in place to get there. This approach can be useful when monitoring environmental progress; a business needs to decide what it wants to work on and how it will get there.

• Creating specific goals for each individual business provokes action. Personalising goals will allow for more targeted decision making that will enhance the achievement of that goal and initiate action.
• Having posters within staff rooms with the goals, categories and steps will help provide focus and make employees feel involved in making change. A box or poster within staff rooms where suggestions or improvements can be added would also help employees to interact with the goals and work together to achieve them.
• Checklists within staff rooms to break down the goal will help to clarify and simplify the work that needs to be done to achieve the overall goal.
• When you have set goals, you can be clear on what you want to achieve and easily identify the projects needed to reach each goal. This level of organisation makes reaching targets more likely and promotes business compartmentalisation allowing different groups to work on projects which all feed into the achievement of your overriding goals.
• Measuring progress is important to keep focus; we recommend celebrating progress as this will help create a sense of belonging/ownership of the business among the team members.

Here is an example of a simple goal that can make your business more sustainable: companies are often mailing businesses unnecessary post that is then thrown away and wasted. Removing yourself from mailing lists that are unnecessary is an easy step to significantly reduce deforestation. If one person unsubscribed to the junk mail they receive it would save 1.5 trees per year; imagine the impact a whole business could have in saving trees.