67% of micro-business owners haven’t tried to reduce their carbon emissions

Millions of UK micro-business owners have not taken measures to reduce their carbon emissions, with many believing any action they take will ‘not make a difference’.

A micro-business is defined as any business with 0-9 employees, such as start-ups, and 5.3 million of these are estimated to be in the UK.

Research by Start Up Loans, part of British Business Bank, discovered that 67% of micro-business owners have never sought information on how to reduce their carbon emissions, with 2.4 million not knowing where to go for information.

40% or 2 million of these business owners also said they didn’t think any efforts they made to reduce their own emissions would make a difference.

The survey also revealed a lack of understanding of decarbonisation and sustainability, with 78% of respondents saying they didn’t understand the term net-zero and 72% not understanding the term carbon-neutral.

Richard Bearman, Managing Director of Start-Up Loans, said: ‘The UK’s start up and micro-business community has enormous potential to contribute towards our national net-zero agenda and it’s clear that there is a job to be done in helping many to understand how important they are to that crucial process. This is especially true amid a backdrop of continued economic turbulence and rising operational costs, which is putting unprecedented pressure on smaller businesses.

‘However, it’s more important than ever for consumers to see the companies they buy from taking positive steps towards the climate crisis, even if they’re not able to be completely carbon neutral. That’s why we launched our #GreenToGrow campaign earlier in 2022; to provide a platform via which any business can access helpful, de-jargoned information that explains the terminology around net-zero, as well as how to take steps to convey to their customers that they are taking positive action.’

The campaign includes a variety of free online resources, like the Green Decoder, an online guide created by Nottingham Business School and Nottingham Trent University to clear up terminology surrounding decarbonisation.

This comes as 50% (2.7 million) of micro-business owners surveyed said they found the language, terminology and information around sustainability inaccessible.

Independent research has highlighted the economic benefits of reducing carbon emissions, as Hearts & Science found that 52% of consumers now take a brand’s eco-credentials into consideration when buying products.

One in five of buyers were also found to have decided to stop buying from certain brans due to their environmental impact.

Photo by Atoms