It’s no surprise that the importance of small and medium business in the fight against climate change has only recently been realised.  Despite accounting for 99.9% of the business population, 60% of employment and half the turnover in the UK private sector, they rarely get much attention. *

We highlighted this in a paper back in 2014 entitled ‘120 down. 28,505 to go.’ which highlighted the limited impact of the Low Carbon Champions programme on Suffolk’s SMEs. Let’s hope the current government’s #NetZeroSME campaign to engage with one million SMEs before COP 26 in November does better.

* Figures from the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.  A small business has 0 to 49 employees and a medium business has 50-249 employees.  A micro business has 0 to 5 employees and accounts for the bulk of the small category through sole traders and the gig economy.