What stops a small business from creating a climate report? Lack of time, knowledge and data, says Liz Pearson at Love Heartwood. Liz ‘wrestled her way’ through the data selection and created her first climate report, despite it taking time away from running her small business. Let’s find out why it was important for her.
Why should a small business create a climate report?
Love Heartwood is a sustainable British brand. They have focused on making products from wood. This is sourced from sustainable suppliers or reclaimed, stopping native wood from ending up in a chipper. The small batch production means that less material is wasted. Offcuts are used to make smaller items. The residual wood shavings are donated to a local school for their food composter.
In order to be as circular as possible, particularly for the toys, Liz plants a tree whenever a toy is sold. The trees are planted through schemes like Green The UK, The Royal Forestry Society and Ecologi. The toys, being made out of wood, are repairable. When their life is finished, they are biodegradable.
Liz uses renewable electricity for her workshop. She has chosen non-toxic finishes. This makes her products child-friendly. They are certified vegan by the Vegan Society. Love Heartwood package their products in plastic-free packaging, using recycled cardboard and paper tape. The company has been awarded ‘plastic free champion’ status by Surfers Against Sewage.
It is obvious that Liz and her entire business are committed to operating in an ethical way. The natural next step was to continue on their net zero journey and audit their carbon emissions. The climate report is the outcome of that audit. But how do you audit your carbon emissions for a small business and how do you produce a climate report?
Producing a climate report
The first step in producing a climate report is an audit of carbon emissions. This means measuring all the activities in the company and inputting the information into a carbon calculator. This provides a benchmark against which to measure any future improvements in reaching net zero.
Liz has learned a lot from taking part in Blue Patch’s ‘Lets Do Net Zero’ free training and from advice from Alice C Doyle of Positive Impacts, supported by the Naturesave Trust’s Making Business Greener campaign. Participants in Blue Patch’s free training use the Compare Your Footprint carbon calculator from the Green Element group, measuring scope 1, 2 & 3 emissions.
We asked Liz a few questions.
What were you most concerned about before you started?
What worried me most was not having all the answers which is stupid really [laughs] because obviously you can’t have all the answers. You need to consider tackling your carbon footprint the first time as a work in progress. Don’t worry about not knowing what you don’t know at the start.
If there is something you can’t find an answer to, or calculate, make a note of starting to track it for the next year’s report.
Was there a moment when it all clicked?
I didn’t have an aha moment as such but as we went along and the more I worked with Alice [laughs] I had to keep asking her to explain things to me – she is invaluable – she kept going over what we were doing and it became more understandable. I think it is one of these things the more you do it the easier it gets.
What would you say to other business owners who think it will take too much time to do?
It does take time to do but it’s worth it because as we go forward this is what will be expected more and more from all sorts of businesses. Increasingly there is legislation coming in about transparency and being accountable for, you know, your business. I think it’s coming and if you put the work in now it will make it easier going forwards. If you have a good understanding of your business and what energy, where the areas are that you are expending energy and creating a carbon footprint, it will help you in the future. There is no escaping it. It is coming.
Thanks Liz!
Liz has kindly set out her climate report journey in a blog post on her website. She wants to encourage other ethical micro-businesses to consider auditing their carbon emissions. One of the most important points she makes is to start somewhere, even if you don’t have all the data available in year 1.
In Love Heartwood’s case, the biggest contributor to carbon emissions was the advertising for their direct sales on the website. This is scope 3. One of the data points that she needs to measure in the future is downstream scope 3 emissions, for example the emissions caused by delivery of her items through a third party.
Measure your impact with a climate report
It is all part of a journey. All businesses, micro, small and large, that are working towards net zero need to measure their progress so that they can see how far they have come and what needs to be done next. A carbon emissions audit and a climate report are key to measuring our impact. We hope that you have been inspired by Liz’s commitment to being as low impact as possible. We are!
Join Blue Patch and come on board with he net zero pathway.
