With the constant news about the global climate change crisis and environmental pollution, it is easy to feel pessimistic about the situation and feel there’s little you can do as an individual.
However, as our CEO Dr Tanya Ewing reminded us this week, there is a lot that you can do as an individual and at a local level, which can really make an impact to your community. By way of example, she told us the car park tale: outside the Glaze and Save office the car park often had litter lying around, which on windy days would blow into the neighbouring River Tay and downstream to the North Sea. Tanya and her son would regularly go out and pick up the litter, and she laughed that it was a good way to keep up their activity levels whilst improving the area at the same time!
One day, in the absence of a litter bin, she decided to put out one of her own bins and noticed that other site visitors began to use it too, swelling the volume of the contents. After a few months of pleading with the local binmen to empty this bin, Tanya decided to write to the local council to lobby for a permanent litter bin to be installed in the vicinity. Her persistence paid off and the bi was duly installed and Tanya says she feels delighted when she sees others using that bin, as it shows that people really do want to keep their environment beautiful but sometimes just need a little help.
During the recent #GreatBritishBeachClean event, Tanya and her son took a walk to the river bank where they collected more residual waste which had blown in and stopped it heading down river to the sea. As evidenced by her tale, the work may never finish but that doesn’t mean you should stop trying and one or two people doing ‘the right thing’ can lead to others joining in.
It’s this ethos of the power of the individual to make positive changes which she also applies daily in our business at Glaze and Save. By educating people about energy efficiency and taking the time to explain to them, often on an individual basis, how they can best insulate their windows and doors, she knows that it can make a big positive difference to their health, their wealth and their happiness.
Every employee’s role in our company has an impact on our customers’ wellbeing whether it’s scheduling the work, fitting the glazing or preparing the after-care brochure and Dr Ewing makes sure that the team understand the impact they can have both as individuals and together as a team. In fact, when we were recently asked to rate the impact of the company’s actions against the United Nations Sustainability Development goals, the team was thrilled to see that we contributed to over half of the key priorities.
So the key is to never feel that you are powerless, you can make an effective impact as an individual by doing something simple: having a conversation which could help somebody share your knowledge, picking up a piece of litter you see, resolving to increase your recycling efforts, etc. One person can make a huge difference, and if we all do a bit then collectively imagine what we can achieve!
Cocoon Window Insulation is a trading style of Glaze and Save Ltd