If you've been following our news recently, you'll already know that August 2019 has been a momentous month. Not only did Lucidity turn five, we also took on our first employee. And that's got me thinking about sustainability. So we've decided to take more determined steps to make sure we're making a positive contribution.
1. Social sustainability
The first thing we've been able to do this month is ramp up our support to local businesses. I've been a director of Green Aspirations Scotland CIC for a few years and love being part of this social enterprise that focuses on getting people into nature, sharing skills, and bringing woodlands back into management. I started my involvement by volunteering my skills to rebuild their website and have since been involved in strategy development and implementation, as well as providing basic office support. Bringing Jess on board means that Lucidity can offer much more! So, Jess spends at least one day a week with Green Aspirations. She's been learning about the range of work they do, so she can review their marketing and promotion. And together we'll look at redesigning business processes to make sure they support the organisation. We're also hoping to support more local businesses, from strategy to communications.
2. Environmental sustainability
Doing more to try to reverse the damage we've done to our planet over the past few hundred years is on everyone's minds at the moment, and it's something I've always been passionate about. But, again, I've had to rethink what that means to Lucidity as we added our first member of staff. As a small first step, Jess and I both use Ecosia as our primary search engine. If you haven't heard of it, Ecosia plants trees based on the number of searches its users carry out. So far, I'm up to about 400 trees on my laptop alone! As both of us work from home offices, I'm also thinking about how to best supply them, with less plastic, fair trade coffee, green electricity, and recycled toilet paper. I've been a convert for a while - who doesn't love Who Gives a Crap? - so need to make sure I can extend this to Jess's office. And we'll keep looking for other ways we can reduce our impact.
3. Business sustainability
Finally, I've been thinking about how to make Lucidity more sustainable. Working as an associate over the past couple of years made me realise that two can be better than one, so getting Jess on board is our first step to making sure Lucidity doesn't live and die with me. Most importantly, our approach is intended to help other businesses thrive, so we become more sustainable as we work to help clients do the same. This connection is probably the most important thing to me about Lucidity. We're here not to make clients spend excessive amounts on individual blocks of consultancy, but rather to share our knowledge and skills so clients can do the work themselves the next time. They might need us for other things - which is fantastic! - but I think we've failed if we've not helped them to grow their own capacity.
Between us, Jess and I might not be saving the world, but we're making sure that sustainability in all its forms remains at the forefront of our thinking. We'd love to hear what you're doing to help the cause!