Never heard of Burton? The snowboard company is known as much for its outdoor products as it is for its social involvement. I thought I was familiar with all of Burton’s initiatives, but while chatting with them, I realized that I didn’t know that much after all! Burton is very involved in sustainability! 😱 So here I’ve listed Burton’s environmental initiatives for you that can also apply to your business! It’s about giving you some inspiration!

Inspirational initiatives

Participate in an annual day/week or even organize one!

Burton stores are active locally in all parts of the world, promoting, participating and even hosting community events. During the European Commission Green Week, Burton stores took the opportunity to organize an annual cleaning day. The concept? Launch a call to action by inviting the brand’s consumers to clean up their “playground,” whether it be a mountain, a skatepark, a surfing spot, a mountain bike trail, etc.  

1. Here, Canadian Environment Week runs from May 30 to June 5. Why not take the opportunity to set up a day/week like this? For starters, you can make it internal-only, in which all of your employees participate to improve the environmental cause. Who knows, perhaps the actions taken during this awareness week could become everyday routine?

Use your web visibility to fight climate change

On September 20, 2019, Burton closed its offices for 24 hours, ceased all store sales, and Burton.com was redirected to the Global Climate Strike site. In this way, the storefronts became centres of action for strikers, and Burton workers around the world came together to stand alongside students calling for climate justice.

Obviously, this initiative requires a lot of resources for a small business. However, this is not a reason to do nothing. There are other actions you can take, even on a smaller scale, as it all matters. Here are two of my modified suggestions:

1. In Quebec, there is also a climate strike every year. In fact, in March 2019, nearly half a million people took to the streets of Montreal during the great climate march. Why not participate in it with your employees?

2. Last month, Axial launched the “pick it up” challenge on its social networks. This challenge is intended for our partners, our e-commerce stakeholders and even our competitors. The goal is to get companies to take concrete action in order to act positively on the environment by choosing a regional organization with which to work. For its part, the Axial team mobilized to collect waste on a voluntary basis with the Action Saint-François organization.

You can also consult your region’s sustainable development activities on this site: https://jourdelaterre.org/qc/activites/#decouvrez

Are there no activities in your area? Take the lead and organize an event!

Spread the good news

Burton has a blog to educate its customers by showing them its best practices, but also to show them what other brands are doing as an effort. Sharing this kind of content with the community helps everyone live in a better environment. 

1. Use your reputation to share the latest news or actions in sustainable development on your social networks. 
2. There is also environmental training intended for employees. There’s nothing better than to begin by educating your own employees and then see a change in lifestyle habits, both at home and in the office.

Introduce renewable energy within your company

In 2018, Burton installed 942 solar panels at its head office building in Burlington, Vermont. This year, Burton aims to source 100% renewable energy for all retail stores in the United States and looks to expand this program globally over the next 5 years.

Obviously, this is a big investment. Once again, it doesn’t prevent us from taking action!

1. If you’re an e-merchant, you can use renewable energy for hosting servers. For example, at Axial, our servers are responsibly-hosted with Cloud AWS.

Know your environmental impact

Since 2014, Burton has used life cycle analysis to assess its products’ carbon impacts and measure greenhouse gas emissions from its facilities. 

1. Do you know what your annual energy consumption is? A first step would be to become aware of this fact. To help you, there are online tools or even specialists in the field. Once your consumption has been recorded, you can think about offsetting your emission. 

What should you take away from all of this?

We realize that Burton is a huge player in the industry, and that you likely don’t have the same resources. But, even if you’re far from heading to the White House to discuss climate issues like Burton does, every step counts, and you’ve taken the first step by reading my article!

For your next application steps, consider this quote from Emily Foster, Environmental Impact Manager at Burton, when we asked her to define sustainability for Burton:

“At Burton, sustainability means both social and environmental responsibility to everyone our business impacts and the planet we share.”

Article by Laixa