Can SMEs Become Carbon Neutral?
When running a small-medium-sized business (SMEs), it is essential to be mindful of your carbon footprint. The public is increasingly becoming aware of their effect on climate change and carbon emissions. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, people are seriously mindful of their impact on the planet. The outbreak of COVID-19 has sparked an interest in social, environmental, and political change in the UK, specifically the green economic recovery. These new changes will impact how businesses and lifestyles are operating. These changes inspire SMEs to implement changes in their industry that reduce their carbon footprint or even wholly rebrand their business to be carbon neutral. This brings about the question, can SMEs even become carbon neutral?
If you would like to read more information or learn more about the pricing of business energy, you can do so here.
What does it mean to be carbon neutral?
Addressing whether SMEs can become carbon neutral would be challenging to manage without first addressing what it means to be carbon neutral. Carbon emissions refer to gases like methane or carbon dioxide released when using fossil fuels like coal, oil, and coal. These gases are released in creating energy and gas that are typically used in everyday life to produce heat, lighting, disposing of waste, and other necessities in today’s world. These gases are harmful to the environment but have become necessary to run our modern life.
To be carbon neutral means that your business is aware of how much greenhouse gases your company creates and uses this information to take steps to be more energy-efficient. A way to do this is to switch to a renewable energy business supplier. This will offset your carbon output and make your business carbon neutral by making up for the harmful gases produced.
Benefits of being carbon neutral
Choosing to be carbon neutral in your business is a big step, which is why it is worth noting some of the benefits that come from being carbon neutral. One of the most considerable benefits of carbon neutralization is saving money. There are many ways to save money when becoming carbon neutral, and many of them come from spending less money on gas, electricity, and travelling. This benefit is great for your business in the long run so that you can spend more money on what is essential to run your business and save money for emergencies. The money saved can also go to investing in other ways to offset your companies carbon footprint, such as paying to have trees built.
Another benefit of being carbon neutral is that the people your business is trying to reach will see it as a positive thing, influencing them to use your services. Being eco-friendly and earth-conscious has a lot of social impacts, especially recently with the surge of interest in climate change and environmental effects.
There is also the obvious benefit of being carbon neutral, the fact that it is benefiting the environment in the long run. You will get the peace of mind that your company is doing its part in protecting the environment and not adding to pollution.
Steps to becoming carbon neutral
Becoming carbon-neutral can seem like an impossible task and makes it easy to turn away from, especially for SMEs. It does not have to be that way. There are a few steps that will make it easier to turn your business into a carbon-neutral company.
-
Learn about your carbon footprint
There are many different ways businesses can produce a carbon footprint, and they are not all the same. Your carbon footprint is determined by the number of harmful gases you create, and you can find this using a calculator online by asking a series of questions. It is essential to know your carbon footprint as a starting point to see where you can change how you produce energy and waste.
2. Know where your energy comes from
Knowing where you get your energy is critical to ensure that you get good, environmentally friendly energy. Some providers can serve you with renewable energy, which will help you become carbon neutral.
3. Offset whatever you can not eliminate
It is not possible or realistic to eliminate 100 per cent of all carbon outputs that your company produces. When this happens, you can still be carbon neutral by offsetting. An example of offsetting your carbon footprint would be to invest in planting trees or doing something else that benefits the Earth.
SMEs can become carbon neutral; it will take some research and dedication to protect the environment. Becoming carbon-neutral will benefit your company by bringing you more business and saving you money. It will help the Earth by releasing less harmful gases and working towards preventing pollution. It might seem like an impossible task, but there are resources out there, and it is becoming more and more common. Read more about making your SME carbon neutral here.
Other useful links about Business Energy
Business Energy Guide For Businesses
The Climate Change Levy
Commercial Energy Suppliers
Remember to Compare Your Business Costs is here to help your business every step of the way from business advice, or saving you time and money on your business purchases such as:
Ally Cox is a dedicated Copywriter and Blogger for CompareYourBusinessCosts.co.uk. In under two years, the platform achieved the esteemed accolade of ‘Website of the Year’. Since its award-winning debut, Ally has been instrumental in fostering organic growth for the website, expanding its offerings to encompass comparisons across a diverse range of over 20 products to help serve all your business needs.