Yesterday’s Suffolk 25 By 25 event hosted by Suffolk Chamber of Commerce and Suffolk Carbon Charter was both interesting and, as the Chamber’s most popular event ever, reassuring in that hopefully people are waking up to the climate crisis. Whilst some things are changing, some aren’t, and the problem of addressing the needs of businesses at scale hasn’t gone away.
Researching the small business sector is always tricky as the data is usually hard to find. Fortunately the Suffolk Observatory brought to you by the Suffolk Office for Data & Analytics (SODA) brings lots together in one place, and beautifully presented too. Three stats of interest …
The total number of businesses in Suffolk was estimated at 31,020 in 2022. This is up nearly 10% from 28,625 1 in 2014 when we launched Low Carbon Champions CIC.
What hasn’t changed is the percentage of micro businesses employing 0-9 people, many of which will be self employed. The chart below shows Suffolk (blue), Eastern England (black) and England (grey) which are all very similar at about 90%. Multiplying number of businesses by this percentage suggests there are approximately 27,545 micro businesses in Suffolk.
The final statistic of interest is methods of travel to work. Over half the working population in Suffolk use a car or van to travel to work This is higher than the national average reflecting a rural space and will still be a tough statistic to bring down.
Having a government or regional authority 2 that implements policies that force people to take appropriate actions is ultimately the answer. Until then we’ll carry on with our Carbon Champions programme to try to enable action at scale.
- These figures aren’t direct comparisons. The 2014 figure was all businesses under 20 employees. Converting to a CIC didn’t make much difference either.
- Sadiq Khan has significantly reduced traffic pollution in London since implementing an Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ)