How smaller businesses can become net-zero influencers and enablers
- Written by Richard K. Blundel, Professor of Enterprise and Organisation and Director of the Centre for Social and Sustainable Enterprise (CSSE), The Open University
What if all of the UK’s 48,000 hairdressing salons and barbershops[1] started sharing water and energy-saving advice with their clients, alongside a clipper cut or a wash and blow dry? Previous studies[2] have demonstrated that hairdressers can shape customers’ environmental behaviour with guidance they can trust and that relates to their everyday lives.
And it’s not just hairdressers. Cafes and restaurants are also addressing food-related emissions with carbon labelling schemes and more sustainable menu choices.
Recruiting smaller businesses to support the drive for net zero makes a lot of sense. More than half of the UK’s business emissions are estimated[3] to come from its 6 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs – companies with less than 250 employees). As the authors of a recent OECD report[4] argue, there’s “no net zero without SMEs”.
But the decarbonisation of smaller firms has only recently attracted serious attention from policymakers, through initiatives such as the UK Business Climate Hub[5]. And while criticism of Rishi Sunak’s watering-down of net-zero policies has united environmental campaigners with some company bosses and investors[6], it may not be enough to keep SMEs and their emissions in the spotlight.
SMEs are important as energy consumers, and there is an increasing focus on the carbon they emit directly, or that is embedded in their products and services. However, as highlighted in a recent study[7] I worked on with colleagues at Oxford and Sheffield Hallam universities, smaller businesses can also help cut emissions as behavioural “influencers” and “enablers” of change.
How SMEs can help meet net zero goals
