Net Zero and Energy Efficiency
Businesses of all sizes are committing to do their bit to cut carbon emissions, reduce energy usage and protect the planet.
In 2021 the UK government created the UK Business Climate Hub, which has resources and tools for SMEs to join the fight against climate change by committing to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.
The Business Climate Hub has lots of resources and tools to help you reduce your carbon footprint including tools on:
- Calculating Your Emissions
- Reducing Your Own Emissions
- Reducing Value Chain Emissions
- Strategy & Governance
- Influence Change
Energy Bill Relief Scheme
Announced on the 21st September, this scheme will provide energy bill relief for non-domestic customers in Great Britain. Discounts will be applied to energy usage initially between 1 October 2022 and 31 March 2023.
The scheme will be available to everyone on a non-domestic contract including:
- businesses
- voluntary sector organisations, such as charities
- public sector organisations such as schools, hospitals and care homes
who are:
- on existing fixed price contracts that were agreed on or after 1 April 2022
- signing new fixed price contracts
- on deemed / out of contract or variable tariffs
- on flexible purchase or similar contracts
The government will provide a discount on your gas and electricity unit prices. To calculate your discount, the estimated wholesale portion of the unit price you would be paying this winter will be compared to a baseline ‘government supported price’ which is lower than currently expected wholesale prices this winter. Suppliers will apply reductions to the bills of all eligible non-domestic customers. The government will compensate suppliers for the reduction in wholesale gas and electricity unit prices that they are passing onto non-domestic customers.
The discount applied will be in pence per kilowatt hour (p/kWh). The p/kWh government support for comparable contracts will be the same across suppliers, but the absolute level of individual bills will continue to vary across different contracts and tariffs.
For fixed contracts the discount will reflect the difference between the government supported price and the relevant wholesale price for the day the contract was agreed. The government will publish the wholesale prices we will use for calculating this for each day from 1 April 2022.
For variable, deemed and all other contracts, the discount will reflect the difference between the government supported price and relevant wholesale price, but be subject to a ‘maximum discount’ that will determined at the beginning of the scheme.
Businesses on variable / flexible contracts will need to choose if they move to fixed contracts. This is likely to suit you if you don’t want to be exposed to price variation. You will be contacted by your supplier.
The p/kWh government support for comparable contracts will be the same across suppliers, but the level of support for each organisation will vary depending on type and date of contract.
Other Support
There are lots of other programmes, tools and organisations that can help you achieve net zero and reduce your carbon footprint.
Some of these include:
- Ofgen- Guidance for small businesses on energy grants, schemes and advice to lower carbon emissions and get more efficient with commercial energy use.
- Carbon Trust- Steps to energy saving-tools for SMEs.
- Carbon Trust-The Lighting Business Case Tool has been designed to help UK based SMEs assess the potential for investing in more energy efficient solutions.
- Eco-I NW-Offering access to the equipment, expertise and research of six North West Universities to develop low carbon products, processes and services.
- BSI- free Energy Management Standard BS ISO 50005
- Planet Mark- Offering sustainability certifications for businesses, real estate and for products.
For more support in understanding the ways to go net zero and support available then contact the Growth Hub.