So my original plan of doing an online audit making some changes waiting 6 months/ a year and doing the same online audit got totally blown out the water by Will on Wednesday, when he pointed out that SME’s are effected by weather, by turn around, by expansion or reduction in businesses size this in turn effects their carbon footprint!  Organisations would really love us if they go through our processes then because of a cold winter and they had increased turn over we told them their carbon footprint had increased despite the changes they made! We need to try and keep SME’s on the eco wagon so disheartening them is not the way forward!

So how will we measure their progress? We could get a maths wiz to assess how the business has altered and how their carbon footprint should have changed in relation to all factors however this a) could get very expensive! And b) what factors do you or don’t you include? Cold winter, bright summer, increased work force the list really could go on!!

So we will have to take a similar approach to that of the LCC, in that using the alterations made and how much carbon DEFRA(slightly out of date but working on it) says those features will reduce your original carbon footprint by. This seems a poor way of measuring the difference particularly if a charter were to be given that was accredited. For now as we are not looking for perfect accuracy but behaviour change it will work however in the future the maths wiz may have to step up to the plate!