A clear sustainability strategy can help you improve efficiency, reduce costs, meet customer and partner expectations and prepare for reporting requirements. Whether you are just starting out or refining an existing approach, we can help you understand where you are and how to take your next steps.
When starting to think about your business’s sustainability, your priority is to build an accurate picture of where you are now.
For many businesses, this means capturing your carbon footprint. This helps you understand where your energy usage, travel, waste and purchasing are making the biggest impact. Start with simple data that you already have.
Free carbon footprint calculators like SME Climate Hub or Small99 can help you get an initial view of your emissions and hotspots.
If you want more guidance and quick resources to get started, you can check out the UK Business Climate Hub and the Heart of the City Climate Action Toolkit. They are designed for small businesses and cover climate basics, measurement and action planning.
Once you understand your footprint, you can focus on identifying practical quick wins and building your confidence with sustainable transformation.
Once you have built a track record of practical sustainable actions, you may want to develop more structure, clearer priorities and a practical plan. By moving from general awareness to a more structured picture of your emissions and opportunities, you can prioritise and see what scale of investment or transformation a practice calls for.
You can also develop a monitoring and assessment framework. UK Government guidance recommends defining organisational boundaries, measuring impacts consistently and using the results to set targets and priorities.
An emissions reduction plan can help you connect measurement with practical action. You can also progress from a simple carbon footprint calculator to a more advanced calculator model for complex or multi-site organisations.
This is also the stage during which many businesses start looking more closely at their purchasing decisions and the impact of their supply chains.
When you have some sustainable practices in place, you might look to strengthen your governance, improve your reporting, or integrate the practices more fully with your business.
Your focus at this stage shifts from ‘what can I do?’ to ‘How do I make this a credible and consistent part of my business?’. This might include aligning to a recognised sustainability certification standard like the Transition Plan Taskforce Framework or the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard.
You might also start exploring integrating sustainable practices by strengthening delivery, involving suppliers, improving performance data and linking them to your corporate strategy.
There is a range of finance and skills options to help you with your sustainability planning. If you would like more tailored support, speak to one of our expert advisors.
