Communicate
Once the carbon footprint has been measured and the reduction plan put in place perhaps the business is in a position to look at a long term strategy and commit to Carbon Neutrality and Net Zero. This may involve getting the measure figures verified and a public commitment to this through the UN Race to Zero campaign website for SME’s. https://smeclimatehub.org/
Once the commitment has been made the journey to Net Zero can continue and there are many solutions out there for organic reductions in Carbon,
SME sustainability can help with this verification and the reduction in organic emissions process so please contact us for more details.
Once committed it is also important to publish a report each year showing progress. This can a simple website progress report or a full CSR/ESG report for the business
Please contact us for some advice on these options
Nature and Biodiversity is a key part of the journey. A recent report showed that nature degradation if not halted could reduce GDP by as much as 12% in the UK. There is a real risk of this affecting everyday business and lives.
https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2024/Research-News/Nature-degradation-could-cause-a-12-loss-to-UK-GDP
These are an essential part to any Net Zero Strategy and these are many places to start the journey. Perhaps there is space a work to create your own Nature Zone where Nature can be encouraged or perhaps you could partner with someone who can do this on your behalf. Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT) is a local charity working in partnership with businesses to deliver wide-ranging work that supports nature recovery – including tree planting and habitat creation. Find out more.
These type of activities can be great for staff engagement and volunteering for staff who can get involved with all the Nature activities.
Many companies find it useful to combine all the activities of the journey to Net Zero under the umbrella of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG). These are 17 goals that were agreed by the United Nations and aims to tackle the many issues we have looked at already in this section. The goals are shown below
Generally companies will highlight certain goals where they feel they can make a difference and highlight these with a view to making improvement objectives and targets. For example Net Zero could be an objective of the Climate Action Goal 13. Please see below a link to a company who can also help with this
To B or not to B
Once the journey has started, it may be worth looking at B corporation status. This approval means companies are approved to the standard looking at environmental and climate commitments as well as profitability. More details can be found below.
Hopefully this short introduction has been useful and will breakdown the journey for you a little. Please let us know if we can help you along the way with parts of all of the journey. Contact us