Tauranga is undergoing significant expansion, which puts pressure on the city’s parking space.

Priority One, Tauranga’s economic development agency, is trialing Parkable for Business as a solution for the city’s car park shortfall. According to Mark Irving, Project Lead of the Parkable trial, Tauranga is currently undergoing a significant transformation and expansion, which has put more pressure on the city’s parking space.

Parkable for Business provides a solution by enabling businesses and organisations to fully utilise their car parks via bay sharing. Priority One is sharing its parking bays with individuals from other organisations whenever the space isn’t required by their own staff.The three other businesses trialing Parkable in Tauranga - Jigsaw Architects, Findex and Property Managers Group - are also implementing bay sharing between their staff and with selected individuals from other organisations.

“The Parkable technology has enabled multiple people to share existing leased bays. Most leased bays are not 100% occupied by the tenant and therefore the opportunity exists to allow the general public to use these bays when unused by the original tenant. Parkable has an awesome product, Parkable for Business, that allows this to occur.”
- Mark Irving, Project Lead

Using Parkable, Priority One hopes to make better use of the city’s parking space and attract more people to Tauranga. Their belief is that the trial is a great demonstration of what the entire city can do to better utilise resources.

“The sooner everyone adopts the Parkable app, the more efficient parking will be in Tauranga. It’s straight forward, progressive, user-friendly and above all, it works."
- Mark Irving, Project Lead

Priority One, Tauranga’s economic development agency, is trialing Parkable for Business as a solution for the city’s car park shortfall. Tauranga is undergoing significant expansion, which puts pressure on the city’s parking space.

Priority One trials Parkable

Priority One trials Parkable parking management system to combat parking shortfall in Tauranga

Traditional systems for managing workplace parking

Solution: Lease additional parking stalls

Solution: Encourage other forms of transport

Staff parking is an important perk for your team that also provides a number of business benefits. The ability to easily 

 - which is linked to improved wellbeing, productivity, engagement and retention. Happy, healthy, productive staff? Yes, please.

The human, financial, and administrative costs of staff parking

Despite its importance, workplace parking all too often gets tied up in problems and complaints. Here are a few examples:

 That could look like: working parents can never secure a park onsite and arrive late after circling the block; staff arrive at work two hours early just to park, then sleep in their car; people park at expensive, far away car parks - only to see empty parks at work.

Parks sit empty, even when there’s high demand for parking.

 This means expensive real estate is going to waste. It could be because: your parks are allocated to execs or certain staff members who aren’t always in the office, and no one else can park there. This problem has grown massively with remote and flexible working post-Covid.

Your admin team spends a huge amount of time monitoring the parking lot.

 This could include: checking if only registered cars are parked, using spreadsheets to keep track of parking, or reconciling parking payments every month.

To further complicate matters, there are a few different business objectives related to workplace parking, which can be in conflict.

 - For CEOs, HR, and managers, staff parking is an important component in staff happiness. An easier commute increases engagement and productivity, and helps with talent retention and acquisition.

 - CFOs and Finance don’t want to spend more than they need to on parking, in terms of both lease costs and administrative costs. They also want to ensure that what the business pays for is being used efficiently.

 - Sustainability Managers may want to reduce the number of staff driving to work, which could mean implementing carpooling bays, EV charger parks, or reducing the number of parking spots available to the team.

commuting affects health, happiness, workplace engagement, and retention

. Some of the conclusions are pretty damning:

Princeton University found that of all activities, 

 are two of the most negative experiences of the day

Commuting is the second-most common source of 

 reason for people choosing to leave a job

Unhappy employees and high turnover are not what companies want. While companies can’t influence much of their employees’ commute, a big part of the problem is parking - and staff parking is largely within a company’s control.

Looking for some real-life examples? Check out how companies like 

 have created better commutes and happier employees through changes to their staff parking.

On average, 12% of a company’s real estate spend is on parking spaces. This is what that looks like in a few major cities:

 In the CBD, businesses easily spend $300 per month on each leased parking spot - that’s over $3,500 per park, per year.

 In the CBD, it easily costs $550 per month to lease a parking spot - that’s $6,500 per park, per year.

 In the city, you can spend £300 per month on a parking spot - £3,500 each year.

Prior to Covid-19 and the widespread adoption of flexible and remote working, the average company car park saw 20-35% of its parking spots sitting empty every workday. Now, we’ve seen car parks up to 57% empty as more staff work from home.

If a company leases 100 staff parking spots and 33 of their parks sit empty during the year, they are effectively spending over $100,000 dollars or pounds each annum on a vacant asset. By city, that’s a wasted spend of:

This doesn’t mean that companies shouldn’t spend money on staff parking. As we’ve seen, onsite parking can make a big difference to staff engagement. However, it does mean that there’s sound financial reason to use car parks more efficiently - rather than letting them sit empty.

 increased their car park occupancy by 15% through a smart parking management system.

For some businesses and organisations, administrating the car park can be hugely time-consuming and complex.

Companies whose facilities managers manually check the parked cars every morning, to make sure they have the correct workplace ID on the dashboard

Companies whose staff need to sign in at reception whenever they park onsite

Companies whose finance team needs to calculate parking costs as a deduction to their pay cheque each fortnight

Companies whose staff call them after hours, before work, and on weekends asking if parking will be available the next day

Companies whose staff sneak into the car park and use the executives’ allocated car parks, because the other alternatives are so scarce - leaving administrators to clean up the mess

All of these issues drain time and resources, and distract your admin team from more valuable tasks. However, the root problem is always the same: manual systems for monitoring, booking, and payment. With a parking management system, each of these tasks is automated, saving the admin team time and resources.

 of administrative time each year by automating their processes with parking management software.

Traditional systems for managing staff parking

Traditionally, there are two common ways to manage staff parking: allocation, and first come, first served. Here’s a quick overview of each system, the problems, and what companies can do about it.

An allocated parking system describes a car park setup where each parking spot is assigned to a specific member of staff. Sometimes an allocated park is part of the employee’s contract, and is paid for by the company. In other cases, staff pay an annual salary sacrifice for their park, effectively offsetting the business cost of leasing the car park.

Generally, parks are allocated based on one of two things:

 - executives or managers receive a parking spot as part of their employment contract

 - employees go on a waitlist until a parking spot becomes available, which can take years

Because companies usually have far more employees than parking spots, staff members who do not have an allocated parking spot are left to fend for themselves.

The major issue with an allocated parking system is that staff are not always in the office. When you take into account remote working, sick leave, holidays, and alternative transport, each employee only actually drives into work and uses their allocated park about 70% of the time.

Because of this, about 30% of staff car parks sit empty each working day. Since Covid-19, these numbers have increased hugely for companies with flexible working policies.

An underused car park has a financial and human cost:

 When people have to park far from the office or use expensive commercial parking, then see empty parks at the office, it can cause them to disengage and become resentful.

 Companies end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for space that sits vacant because it isn’t used efficiently.

 If staff pay a salary sacrifice for their allocated park but start working remotely more often, they may no longer see the value in paying for a parking spot and drop their allocation. If this happens on a large scale, businesses are suddenly footing the bill for empty space.

Solution: Sharing space between employees

 when they went to flexible working, and instead use Parkable to share space between all of their staff.

If you want to retain allocated parking as a perk for specific staff while utilising those allocated parks when they sit empty, a ‘park sharing’ system gives you the best of both worlds, allowing staff to share their park with colleagues whenever they’re away from the office.

The traditional alternative to allocated parking is a ‘first come, first served’ system. Basically, whoever turns up first gets to park, and if you’re too late, you miss out. Although this is generally seen as more democratic than allocated parking, because all members of staff have the right to park onsite, there are problematic biases at play when you look at who is actually benefiting.

Sarah, who lives 45 minutes’ drive from the office and needs to drop her children at school before work each day.

Dan, who lives close to the office and doesn’t have responsibilities before the workday begins.

In a ‘first come, first served’ system, it’s easy for Dan to get to work early enough to secure a parking spot, whereas someone like Sarah will always miss out because she has responsibilities that are outside of her control. Over time, Sarah will grow resentful - especially if off site parking is scarce, far from the office, or expensive.

Similarly, this system can incentivise behaviour like staff turning up at work hours early and then eating breakfast or napping in their cars, which is not generally seen as the epitome of ‘work-life balance’.

Your go-to guide for improving employee parking. Everything from common problems, to what's wrong with the traditional systems, to the new car park management solutions that can transform your staff experience.

Parking management system

Solving workplace parking problems: The ultimate guide

One of the best features of Parkable's parking management software is that it allows companies to make the most efficient use of all of their parking bays - even those assigned to individuals.

Often in a business, people have assigned parking bays made permanently available to them. While tremendously useful to these lucky ones, it means that when they are away - on holiday, sick leave, or working away from the office - the parking space is left empty. For businesses suffering from space scarcity - more staff members than parking spots - having unoccupied bays makes little sense, and can reinforce hierarchy in the business.

Parkable for Business allows those with assigned parking to share their bay with other staff members on the days they are away. This means more parking available to your team, more efficient use of space, and a more equitable sharing culture.

For those businesses already using Parkable for Business, this system has created significantly more available parking, which is now being fully utilised by other members of staff.

At Auckland-based Kiwi Property, the ability to share assigned bays has resulted in a 15.7% increase in the number of parking bays available. These ‘bonus bays’ have an average utilisation of 102%, meaning that on average they are used by at least one other staff member each day they are available, and sometimes more.

“The app is really easy to use - our staff think it’s great,” said Michael from Kiwi Property. “Parking space is really scarce for us, so being able to make the best use of every bay we have is one of the best aspects of Parkable. It’s the shared economy coming to our scarce resources. Now, if someone’s away from the office, their bay goes to another member of staff, and the app makes that transfer extremely easy.”

Datacom has similarly seen an increase in available car parks of 9.87%, and a utilisation rate of 93%. The business’s use of park sharing has increased revenue made from Datacom’s car parks by 18.75%, although in this case the business elects to return the revenue to those employees who share their space.

Parkable for Business also gives flexibility to businesses over how they wish to encourage the sharing of car parks, and each business has taken a different route. Kiwi Property has chosen not to charge subscription holders or casual parkers, and has simply used encouragement to motivate staff to share their unused bays.

At the other end of the spectrum, Datacom has used financial incentives to encourage the sharing of subscription bays, as those subscription holders receive the benefit when someone parks casually in their bay.

Ilona from Datacom, who has a subscription bay, said: “I’ve found that having the ability to give back my parking bay when I’m not coming into the office is easy to do via the Parkable app, but also helps other casual users wanting to use the space. This also allows me to recover that days parking costs, which is a win-win in my view.”

Car park sharing between staff

Parkable makes sharing space between co-workers easy

 is vital to an effective facility management program, but it's also a complicated proposition. Managing parking lots at scale will quickly become more complex than you may have bargained for.

Juggling 200 plus spaces, from assigning to re-assigning, is a full-time job without considering payment schedules, infringement issues, and integrating sustainability policies into parking lot management.

Thankfully, there are solutions that help to streamline the complicated parking management process. Parking lots or garages exceeding as little as 50 spaces need parking lot management software to handle the complexities of people coming and going, parking in the wrong space, and a thousand other things that will pop up unannounced.

 must be designed with the intricate details of managing parking lots or garages on a grand scale in mind so that you don't need to waste precious time and resources on administration.

Multiple occupiers and changing employee needs

In large parking lots where more than a few businesses are sharing a space, the allocation of slots can quickly get complicated. Ensuring there are enough spaces for all employees of all companies is an ongoing challenge as occupiers come and go. For example, before Parkable, chasing down infringers at 

 wasted an average of 20 hours every week. With parking management software, infringement management is no longer a manual process.

Hybrid working has become more accepted in industries, leading to changing parking needs. For example, whereas employees may have driven to work daily, the spaces they habitually used are no longer occupied by their vehicles. As a result, these spaces might sit unused, costing money twice over. Or, too many employees come to the office at the same time, overwhelming the parking lots. Parking lot management software can effectively plan and schedule parking needs according to changing employee habits.

Two massive revenue holes exist in a poorly managed parking lot; empty space and revenue collection. An open parking space is simply a piece of ground you have spent money to lease that is now wasting your money.

Empty parking spaces happen for various reasons, including having spaces allocated to specific staff members or clients that aren't around to use them. This open space wastes money twice: the money you've spent and the money you could earn from someone using it.

Parking lot management software adequately disseminates empty parking spaces, eliminating this waste.

The other revenue hole is in the finance department, which manually has to figure out

parking payments. Chasing down employees to confirm the use of spaces, requesting payment, or calculating the appropriate way to deduct parking costs from paychecks is a draw on resources that can be better allocated elsewhere.

Your finance department can leverage parking lot management software to take this job off their to-do list while streamlining it and ensuring a payment never gets missed.

While this model may seem like the fairest, it can leave employees with needs and responsibilities outside their control feeling like the system disadvantages their commuter options. Unaddressed, these feelings can lead to some pretty serious consequences, such as 

 and ultimately, decreased staff retention.

Another side of this is that while the first to come is rewarded, we’ve seen examples of employees showing up early to work to get a spot but then nap or eat breakfast in their car. Therefore, staff members with families (or who live far away) never get a parking space at the office. This grows the same resentment and unfair feeling, as though the company is not doing what it can to ensure their parking options are convenient and affordable.

Parking lot management software streamlines parking by changing to a booking system, allowing employees to book appropriate spaces independently of how early they can get to the office.

Switching from allocated spaces based on seniority, or first-come, first-serve spaces based on availability, to a parking lot management software that gives employees the power to plan their commute in advance. This flexibility means seamless space sharing between employees who aren't in the office and employees who need a space at a specific time.

Using parking lot management software that can be programmed with the appropriate division of large parking lots means specifying how many spots are allocated for businesses. Gone are the days of the daily parking space lottery. With Parkable's parking lot management software, parking is based on schedules and needs.

Parkable's parking lot management software saves your admin team time and money. They no longer have to manually allocate parking spaces; these are automatically assigned and re-assigned using a smart algorithm.In fact, with flexible parking software, managing every type of parking is simplified. Whether it’s booking spaces for visitors, allocating 

 also provides real-time reporting and dashboards, meaning you can make better informed decisions about asset usage in the short and long-term.

Parking lot management software increases the productivity of parking lots while minimizing redundancies. By allowing for appropriate scheduling and sharing of parking spaces, pavement never sits empty, waiting for payment. This optimizes the space available, increasing occupancy and, thereby, revenue. Revenue is also improved with parking lot management software by cutting associated costs and work for the company.

Use parking lot management software to increase flexibility and revenue

Parking lot management software is designed to remove the pain and inefficiencies of outdated practices. By using parking management software backed by industry titans like 

, you can simplify facility management while maximizing parking lot efficiency.

 to see how Parkable can improve your revenue and experience.

Solving workplace parking problems is vital to an effective facility management program, but it's also a complicated proposition. Managing parking lots at scale will quickly become more complex than you may have bargained for.

How to manage private parking lots at scale

So how does a parking lot management system help? Well as we know, parking is one aspect of daily life we don't always have space to think about. For example, when you have a report due in a few hours and have to present with a mustard stain on your shirt, you don't want to worry about where you'll park your car when you get back from lunch.

But parking is consistently one of employees' top complaints about their workplace. Not being able to locate a parking space or having to search for a long time are real irritations. As well as feeling as though you miss out on the good spots if you don't come to work extra early. These can all lead to feelings of resignation.

 offer an elegant solution to parking problems. Parking lot management systems help organize available parking spaces according to your customers' and employees' real-time parking needs. This frees up space, creates a better working environment, and improves coveted parking spaces for potential customers.

Parkable is a parking lot management system that allows a company to designate which parking spaces are available for their organization. Using advanced algorithms, the app recognizes how many parking spaces there are and who can book them. This makes parking management very easy. In addition, the algorithm recognizes when someone shares their parking spot and can automatically reassign.

Another excellent feature is being able to book a space days in advance. This reassures employees that they will have a parking spot when they arrive at work. If they can't find available space to book, they have plenty of time to arrange another way of getting to work. These can include public transport, bike riding, or ride-sharing.

An excellent feature of managing your parking spaces is being able to park specialized vehicles in specialized spaces. As electric vehicles (EV) become more popular, having a place to park and charge an EV is a significant perk for eco-friendly employers.

If you choose to set aside chargers for employees, you can program Parkable's parking management system to recognise this. It will detect which employees need that space for their EV and designate it for them.

EV charging for customers is another perk you can give visitors to your building. Parkable’s algorithm can be set to allow for only customer parking in EV charging spaces.

Parkable offers an easy EV charger management option so you can manage, share, and monetize EV chargers. Whether you choose to allow employees and customers to charge for free or charge a fee, Parkable makes it streamlined and straightforward.

What makes a parking management system so great?

A significant benefit of empowering employees to book spaces and track how often they use them is that it streamlines charging staff for parking. Instead of a salary sacrifice model wherein staff give up a fixed amount of their salary for parking privileges regardless of how often they use parking, charges are based on usage. This makes it much fairer and encourages employees to find alternative ways to travel.

Payments are simple, done with daily, weekly, or monthly mobile payments that work as seamlessly as 

Increased efficiency with a parking lot management system

There's an increase in efficiency across the board. Employees can save time finding a parking space before inevitably feeling defeated and parking far away by having a space already booked.

Those who don't enjoy driving in the city can more easily make ride-sharing plans with other employees. Failing that they might be offered incentives to try alternate forms of transportation. Employees with flexible schedules can plan more effectively. They will know when they will and won't have parking made available to them.

Employees can still have dedicated parking spaces available when needed. However, if they are away from the office, their spaces can be repurposed. This will increase the overall parking areas available for all employees, no matter their seniority.

Allowing employees to work earlier or later as feasible is a great work perk that many people with children or other responsibilities or hobbies like to take advantage of. However, flexible working policies can put added strain on parking.

Some employees show up when there is nowhere left to park. They then have to walk blocks to their car at the end of their workday. This can sometimes be at night if they work a flexible schedule. But parking management systems can free up parking spaces for different types of workers at different times.

A parking lot management system boosts morale

Companies using Parkable's parking management system have found a marked increase in morale. Many employees felt under the old system that parking was unfair. Making them feel less valued than other employees.

For instance, one company CEO using Parkable's parking lot management system admitted that it felt strange to her that she had a personal space assigned just to her.

In addition, she disliked that this spot would sometimes be empty. This left employees parking streets away and fighting for their spot, despite it being open. Using Parkable, she has a spot when she needs one but can also ensure that parking is fair for everyone.

. For example, two-thirds of employees think that using the Parkable parking lot management system has made parking at work fairer than before. Added to that, 1 in 3 said that park sharing improved their perception of work culture.

Employees can also ride-share more easily. When someone knows they have a space booked, it's straightforward for them to approach others offering ride-sharing options.

Parkable allows companies to incentivize employees to use alternate forms of transportation. Such as scooters, bikes, E-bikes, or public transport. This saves the employee gas money and contributes to more eco-friendly solutions.

When coming to a business, customers need to feel like their trip is as stress-free and enjoyable as possible. Unfortunately, parking is a common irritant that makes any situation 100 times more stressful than it needs to be. Say the parking lot is full of employees' vehicles and customers are huffing and puffing from a few blocks away. This reflects poorly on the business and leaves a bad taste in customers' mouths.

Parkable's parking management system frees up important parking spaces to make the parking experience more enjoyable for your customers.

Although parking is usually treated as an afterthought, it has a massive effect on our daily lives. 

Parking costs companies more than they realize

 in human, financial, and administrative woes. By using a parking management system that efficiently organizes your parking, you can ease a lot of strain. It eliminates many of the problems, costs, and irritation associated with parking for your customers and coworkers.

 to learn more about how Parkable parking lot management can help your business optimize its space.

Parking is one aspect of daily life we don't always have space to think about. For example, when you have a report due in a few hours and have to present with a mustard stain on your shirt, you don't want to worry about where you'll park your car when you get back from lunch.


Workplace parking lot management system

How a parking lot management system humanizes workplace parking

Sydney’s Waverley College has launched Parkable to manage its staff parking.

Prior to Parkable, Waverley College used a ballot system to allocate their parking spaces to employees. When someone didn’t receive a park in the ballot, they used street parking.

While this system was fair, it meant that whenever someone with an allocated park was on leave or away from the campus, their parking spot sat empty. Because staff parking at Waverley College is scarce, the team wanted to improve how they used the space.

Introducing Parkable to manage and share staff parking

Parkable enables easy sharing and booking of Waverley College’s staff parks. Using the app, the staff can share their allocated car park with colleagues when they’re on leave, and other members of staff can easily book and request those shared parks.

“We wanted a solution that could help us leverage better value from the parking spaces we had, and provide our staff with a way to locate unused spaces easily and simply. Parkable came along at a perfect time to assist with better management of the limited parking opportunities our staff had.”- Simon Potter, IT Manager

While changing to a new system is always a challenge, Parkable’s experienced customer success team provided engagement tools and platform training to make the transition easy.

“Parkable’s implementation was managed really efficiently and the help and guidance to get staff across the line with adopting the platform was excellent.”

Parkable enables easy sharing and booking of Waverley College’s staff parks. Using the app, the staff can share their allocated car park with colleagues when they’re on leave, and other members of staff can easily book parking.

Waverley College, Sydney implements Parkable for shareable and bookable staff parking

Parkable allows TSG to easily share 150 parking spots among 250 staff

TSG on Auckland’s North Shore has over 250 staff members and just 150 parking spots, all of which are allocated to specific employees. Staff without a parking spot are put on a waiting list, but generally that list only moves when someone leaves the business. With no other parking options close to TSG and a long public transport commute for those not living on the Shore, the system was creating difficult mornings for employees. In response, staff on the waiting list have been using the allocated parking spots of their colleagues, causing daily problems in the car park.

For Rebecca Rogers, Office Manager of TSG, resolving these parking issues was taking an hour or more of her time each day. However, Rebecca knew that parking at TSG was a problem of management, not just of scarcity.

“We never really had a system for staff parking. All of TSG’s parks are assigned to staff members, so whenever people were away, parking spots were left empty. The only way to share those parks was for people to advise the business that they would be away from the office, and often people forgot or didn’t bother.”

Yesterday, TSG launched Parkable’s software to manage their staff parking and facilitate easy park sharing between employees. With more of TSG’s employees now working from home or on flexible schedules, now is the perfect time to ensure that staff can easily share their allocated park with colleagues, and employees driving into the office can find a park.

“Parkable is making car park availability more visible to all staff as well as making it easy for staff to share parks if they are away from the office. People are already loving the ease of use.”

Parkable's parking management software allows TSG to easily share 150 parking spots among 250 staff.

TSG Auckland launches Parkable

TSG Auckland launches Parkable’s staff parking management system

Instead of pushing the usual idea that increasing your business revenue is all about creating new income streams, we had a good long think about creative practices that businesses can implement to generate extra revenue from what they already have. Below are the fruits of our labour, and they include happier employees, optimising your resources, banking on your values, and fully appreciating your existing customers.

1. Promote satisfaction in your team and see the results

As an employer, focusing on increasing happiness among your team is not only a great end unto itself, but also positively affects the overall success of your business. A great work culture helps businesses to attract and 

 and motivate a better work ethic, and it has also been found to increase profitability. In fact, companies with happy, engaged staff are 

That’s great to know in theory, but where to begin? ‘Make your staff happier’ can sound like a pretty daunting task - but there are a few simple ways to begin the journey:

 to quickly and efficiently receive feedback from your whole team.

Also remember to keep other channels of communication open, so that people feel free to tell you if they are experiencing a problem at work or have a suggestion for improvement.

Provide a basket of fruit each week for a quick, healthy snack - companies like 

 deliver fruit to your door in New Zealand, and 

Organise healthy shared lunches in the office.

Encouraging your team to get some fresh air or exercise together during their breaks.

If someone in your team has excelled or achieved an important goal, make sure that it’s acknowledged!

You can find more excellent suggestions for improving employee satisfaction 

2. Fully utilise your space and resources

One of the easiest ways to create new revenue streams is to make better use of your existing resources. 

 has found that the average company car park has between 20 and 35% of its space unoccupied during the workday, and many offices have more desk space than they currently need. Instead of having these resources go underused, why not lease them to people outside your business and make some extra income?

If you have a parking space that has spare capacity, consider using the 

 to share your extra bays with others and help you achieve some easy extra revenue. Simple to use and flexible to suit your schedule and work hours, leasing your extra parking bays can bring in revenue every month with almost no effort on your part. Pretty neat, right?

Hot desking is another easy way to immediately increase revenue, as well as bringing fresh faces (and fresh ideas) to your business. You should look for people who can bring their own unique energy and experience into your building, so that your workplace becomes more enjoyable as well as more profitable. Try 

In many industries, you will have a huge number of competitors. How do you set yourself apart from other businesses that do something similar to you? One option is to market yourself based not only on the quality of your product or service, but on your values.

 demonstrate that businesses promoting their sustainability practices and values boosts public awareness, purchasing, and customer loyalty.

Companies committed to sustainability had their sales increase by 4% between 2015 and 2016, compared to under 1% growth for other businesses.

In 2016, 66% of respondents said they are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

Sustainability can sway purchasing decisions for 45% of consumers.

Where to start? Here are a few easy steps, and the local companies that are carving out a niche by practicing sustainable and prosocial business methods.

Change all of your packaging to recyclable or compostable materials - or go packaging-free! Some inspiring examples of this are NZ’s 

Train your employees according to your values, and ask them for their ideas on how you can act on them.

Conserve water and electricity. Swap for efficient light fittings and heating, choose a power company that only uses renewable electricity, and use water-efficient dishwashers and toilets.

Put some of your profit towards a good cause. This could be an environmental group, a local project, or a charity - the 

 is a great place to start for organising regular donations.

Whether it’s your environmentalism, your support for community projects, or whatever else your business really cares about, chances are there will be other people who care too, and they’ll be thrilled to find you.

4. Make the most of the customers you have

Many businesses will be using upselling and cross-selling techniques without even knowing it, because often, it’s just a natural part of the sales process. If you’re already onto the terms, skip ahead - otherwise, here are some quick and dirty definitions.

Priority One trials Parkable parking management system to combat parking shortfall in Tauranga

Tauranga is undergoing significant expansion, which puts pressure on the city’s parking space.

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