SMEs divided over environmental measures

More than one in five small firms are delaying embracing environmentally-friendly measures because of the recession but almost as many are being encouraged to implement them, a survey carried out by the Forum of Private Business (FPB) suggests.

In all, 22 per cent of business owners on the FPB’s Environmental Member Panel said that economic conditions had made them less likely to pursue environmentally-friendly solutions. However, 17 per cent said they are even more likely to do so.

The majority of respondents (61 per cent) said the recession had no impact on their environmental policies.

A quarter of panel members (26 per cent) have as yet implemented no environmental measures, but 22 per cent have formal plans and 56 pe cent informal policies in place.

“When small businesses are considering implementing environmentally-friendly policies, the will is certainly there but it is often thwarted by the perception of steep costs and a lack of information and support,” said the FPB’s Policy Representative, Matt Goodman. “It is important to emphasise that measures to reduce carbon emissions can mean savings on the bottom line, but we also need a more joined-up approach from the Government including a system of workable incentives that are rewarding rather than punitive.”

In total, around two thirds of respondents identified barriers to implementing energy-efficiency processes. The main two reasons were the costs involved and because businesses in rented premises saw no reason to pay for improvements of benefit to their landlords.

Other barriers include:

• Planning issues
• Time
• Payback period
• Lack of support
• Lack of information on technology
• Suppliers over-packaging their goods
• Lack of knowledge about where to access grants and information
• Technology not being advanced enough to be practical, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) compared to standard light bulbs.

Most environmentally-proactive business owners on the panel are motivated by a sense of responsibility. In all, 83 per cent are pursuing environmental strategies do so because they believe it is ‘the right thing to do’.

Other motivations are reputation (57 per cent), saving money (48 per cent), because it makes ‘business sense’ (48 per cent), assistance in winning government contracts (13 per cent) and recruiting the right people (13 per cent). Just a few of the panel members said that environmental regulations were a factor.

The most popular measure for improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions is regularly monitoring fuel bills (52 per cent), followed by upgrading commercial premises (48 per cent), investing in technology (43 per cent), reducing the use of resources (39 per cent). In all, 22 per cent have launched environmentally-friendly products and services and 9 per cent have taken action to reduce emissions by working directly with their supply chain.