For over 100 years, the Florida Chamber of Commerce has stood up for what’s right for Florida businesses – now we’re unifying Florida’s job creators to make Florida the most sustainable state in America. We tackle a very real and sometimes controversial topic: resiliency and responsible environmental stewardship of Florida’s air quality, coastlines, lands, and water supply. Florida’s business success depends on sustainable growth and profitability. As Florida’s workplace sustainability training, education, and research leader, we are prepared to help.

The Florida Chamber Sustainability Council understands the complexities of creating a sustainable workplace culture that is an essential element of social responsibility and powers the success of Florida businesses. Let’s create a more sustainable tomorrow for Florida today.

Florida’s population is estimated to grow by 2.8 million more people by 2030, according to the Florida 2030 Blueprint. This growth provides tremendous opportunities to Florida businesses, but it also comes with increased risk to Florida’s fragile ecology. It also offers considerable opportunity for Florida job creators to communicate that they prioritize certain efforts as well as revenue and profit. After all, successful business leaders have proven that social responsibility and thoughtful business practices are key to business growth and sustainable profitability.

Sustainability, an essential element of social responsibility, is intended to protect Florida’s natural resources and is a priority of the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the business leaders who support us. It creates a long-term balance where businesses can flourish while promoting the health of the people and communities they serve. Each time pesticides, plastics, and other chemicals are released into the environment, it potentially impacts all of us. When people and companies make concerted efforts to think about and work towards addressing the quantity of waste and their disposal methods, it helps Florida become even more sustainable.

Larger companies can dedicate staff and resources to sustainability efforts and put a clear focus on reducing consumption, reducing carbon emissions, and other methods of protecting Florida’s natural resources. However, small to mid-sized businesses may not have the luxury of full-time safety and sustainability personnel due to being consumed with essential business needs. We understand that leaders of smaller businesses must focus on revenue, operations, and customer service from the moment they wake up to the minute they go to sleep and that sustainability can sometimes land further down the list of daily priorities. The Florida Chamber Sustainability Council aims to be a partner with small-to-mid-size businesses looking to incorporate intelligent, pro-business, sustainable practices into their business model without needing to add additional staff to achieve this.

We support the health and success of Florida businesses of all sizes. We tackle the topic of resiliency and responsible environmental stewardship of Florida’s quality coastlines, lands, and water supply. Successful business leaders have proven that social responsibility and thoughtful business practices can be key to business growth and profitability. Being sustainable is a mindset where we must consider and act upon Florida’s natural resources and ecosystem. Across Florida, we are connected by air, water, land, and, most notably, what is beneath the ground. The Florida aquifer is a precious natural resource shared by everyone.

Studies show that industry accounts for only between one-third and one-half of all greenhouse gases. Our research has helped us rank Florida against other states across categories such as agriculture, air quality, water and sanitation, oceans and land conservation, clean energy, and transport and infrastructure. In 15 of those 26 metrics, Florida is a clean energy job creation leader. But in per capita greenhouse gas emissions, Florida has an opportunity to improve as only New Jersey, Hawaii, and Delaware generate more waste. We also see a chance to boost our renewable energy production as 43 states generate more power from renewable sources than Florida.

We intend to work directly with industry, state, and local governments to forge partnerships toward the right choices that save money while being even better stewards of our environment. We are finding ways to provide resources, plans, and practices that small to mid-size businesses can use to implement a sustainability program that affects their bottom line in a good way while not being labor- and cost-intensive. We are working to influence and provide additional sustainability tools to employers from a leadership perspective. We want to help small to mid-size companies understand that a sustainability program can be easy to implement, doesn’t require many resources, and typically positively impacts an organization’s bottom line. For example, consuming less electricity equals fewer dollars spent.

Florida plans to execute various voluntary greenhouse gas reductions, including solar power generation. We are leading the way in the sustainability effort by hiring a full-time on-staff sustainability consultant to engage with the organizations to perform assessments and help educate business leaders on best practices and programs. We’re convinced that organizations that adopt early will get a boost and inspire their competitors to do the same. Actual results require an all-hands-on-deck approach and commitment from individuals, businesses, and the public sector to partner and hold each other accountable.