Where To Start Your Net Zero Journey By Small99

Net Zero can easily be overwhelming and confusing, all in equal measure. As you start to feel like you understand it, another piece of terminology or information appears and it starts again. 

Get used to this feeling! It’s a rapidly changing industry that’s evolving all the time, with data collection improving and increasing. However as a small business owner this can easily lead to analysis paralysis where there’s so much information, much of which isn’t relevant or appropriate for you right away. 

It’s okay to ignore some of the more technical aspects and focus on what you need to keep your business moving. That includes progress on Net Zero – the most important thing is to start, somewhere, anywhere – just do something! With that in mind, here are 5 key principles to ground you and help you make solid progress – no matter how data or terminology changes. 

Reduce, don’t replace

Recycling gets a lot of undue attention when it’s really the last thing you should be thinking about. The first thing to be thinking of is Reduce. 

Reduce, reuse, recycle – in that order!

It’s far easier to not consume at all, than it is find a “perfect” sustainable option.Let’s take an example of a small gift shop that buys 100 carrier bags a month. There are three options to reduce the footprint:

  1. Stay with plastic
  2. Swap to Paper bags
  3. Only supply bags on request and move to “Bring your own” policy

1 Plastic bag contains around 10 grams of CO2. A paper bag is nearly 80 grams. Reusing a bag that already exists is 0g. 

Over a month, plastic produces 1kg, paper 8kg. For reference, 8kg is the equivalent to around 25 miles in a petrol car. So, ditching plastic and going paper would actually increase our footprint by 800%. 

This can seem frustrating at first in that the supposed “green” option of paper is actually generating more emissions. It is more recyclable, however from a pure carbon perspective plastic bags are relatively low impact.

Changing your framing is so important for this reason. Reduction of consumption overall will always win out and simplifies the “which is best” comparison which can cause so much confusion. So, rather than replacing with “eco” items, reduce your consumption instead!

Start By: What’s 1 thing you can stop doing today? For example, can you drive 1 mile less a week, or stop putting in delivery slips with packages that aren’t needed?

Momentum

You’re not going to solve this quickly, and the whole Net Zero topic will be around for years to come, if not decades.  Getting started is the key and making as much progress as quickly as possible will put you ahead of the competition. 

As mentioned before, this will be a constantly changing landscape with new products and solutions coming out all the time – so you may need to change course again in future. This is much easier when you have instilled a culture of momentum in your business through regular change making. Perfect is the enemy of progress so try to be better than you were yesterday. We’ll see much more success from 80% of small businesses making imperfect improvements towards Net Zero than 10% being perfect! 

Start By: Make a single change in your business this week. That might be LED bulbs, renewable energy, or changing your bag policy!

Collaborate

On that note, it’s hard for you to reach Net Zero alone. To over simplify it, Net Zero is formed of 3 Scopes:

  • Scope 1 – Created emissions (Cars, usually!)
  • Scope 2 – Consumed emissions ( Vehicles)
  • Scope 3 – Everything Else
    • What you buy, sell, and throw away. 

Scope 3 therefore is mostly your supply chain – from who collects your recycling, to where you buy your products, how you get them to your customers and everything in between. Scope 3 is usually 90% of your emissions as a small business. 

Therefore, to reduce down your emissions, you need your suppliers to do so as well, and that will involve collaborating and working with them to achieve that. Start By: Ask 1 supplier if they use renewable energy.

Budget

Going back to the paper bag example, it’s important to start making decisions with Carbon in mind too. Would you increase your spend by 800% on something without considering if you could avoid spending it at all? Unlikely!

Currently your business is overspending on emissions and is unsustainable. If cash was treated in the same way, thousands of businesses would go out of business daily. 

Start By: Every decision you make, consider the carbon impact as well as financial. Do you need to drive to that meeting? Could you stop printing off invoices rather than just ordering recycled paper?

Communicate

Many businesses are fearful of greenwashing. All greenwashing really is, is the intentional misleading of customers of the environmental impact of an item. 

By being fully transparent, honest and humble, you avoid a lot of the problems. Acknowledging you’re not able to reduce packaging because doing so causes too many breakages, is far better than saying nothing at all. Communicate clearly and openly about the success you’ve had, as well as the struggles. You’re not big corporations who can pressure our suppliers. Instead, demonstrate where your challenges lie and the roadblocks encountered. 

Start By: Create an page on your website where you list environmental actions you’ve already taken. Include things that you may have looked into but can’t afford, such as solar panels, electric vehicles etc. Researching and finding blockers is still taking action!

Summary

These 5 pillars are the foundations which Small99 is built. Getting to net zero is a journey that may take some time, but it doesn’t need to be complicated. One step at a time you’ll build momentum and hit Net Zero before you know it! If you’re curious about your Net Zero score and want some free, tailored examples of where you can begin then visit Small99.co.ukÂ