However, running a business is tough – especially when you’re growing a startup amid a cost-of-living crisis. Finding time to even consider sustainability plans can be a challenge. This is made even tougher by the recurring questions and myths regarding various green business practices which can make it difficult to know who to believe and which course of action to take. At Everflow, the UK’s carbon neutral water provider, we’re focused on helping businesses on their own sustainability journey and have identified the top myths holding owners back from reaching their goals:

Net-zero by 2050 is a long way away

Falling into the trap of thinking net-zero is over 25 years away doesn’t help to create the urgency needed to make the significant changes required. Large companies can often resist change on a meaningful scale because 2050 feels so far away. Giving businesses stricter timelines to cut emissions and ambitious reduction targets would be more impactful.

SMEs can’t have an impact

SMEs account for 99.9% of the business population (5.6 million businesses) so have a significant role to play in reducing the UK’s overall carbon emissions. The government can and should focus more on supporting SMEs with targeted measures as they are younger and more agile than the large companies, which are the biggest emitters and naturally a softer target.

Lowering carbon emissions is complicated

There are a lot of actions we can take in our everyday lives to help reach net-zero, and they are simple and require small changes in behaviour. For example, reducing travel, using green energy, using less gas heating, reducing waste, and recycling. These can have a big impact on a business’s carbon footprint – especially an SME – and requires minimal input.

Businesses like choice

Time-poor businesses may feel overwhelmed by the amount of choice available and feel ill-informed to take those decisions. The government therefore has a key role to play in helping businesses to make decisions about sustainability and setting them up with the right defaults that protect people’s long-term interests. Businesses can then opt out if they want to.

Accurate measurement is needed in order to reduce emissions

Governments are obsessed with proving their impact and this can impede real action. Rather than simply measuring to the most accurate possible figures and endlessly planning, businesses just want to cut through all the complexity and bureaucracy.

Businesses needn’t choose between offsetting or reducing carbon emissions

It’s not the case that businesses can’t offset until they’ve reduced emissions down to the minimum, they can go hand in hand. At Everflow, for example, offsetting helps our customers to reduce their carbon footprints for water services and buying offsets also means we can support a renewable energy project and better understand our own footprint.

All offsets are good offsets

It’s crucial to ensure you’re buying ‘the right’ offsets but doing so isn’t straightforward. Carbon consultants are increasingly busy as demand grows following COP26 and businesses nationwide will have limited in-house capacity to scope out their options.

However, it’s important to carefully research to find the right ones for your business and for the environment and local community. For example, we explored tree planting but eventually decided against it because of question marks over the amount of carbon trees are believed to offset. We’re now considering a partnership with local farmers to access funding to start carbon offset projects which we can claim as credits in future.

The government could really help by providing a fact checking service and ‘things to beware of’ for claims about carbon markets and credits.

Credits can wait until later

While it’s important to make sure you find the right offsets, urgency is also advised. Since COP26, prices have skyrocketed and the window of opportunity to buy offsets and make them have an impact before 2050. Buying as much as possible in advance is advised.

Water has a minimal carbon footprint and is an endless resource

Energy always steals the limelight when it comes to assessing which utility bills impact the environment the most. However, water accounts for around 5% of carbon emissions in the UK. If businesses treated it as the finite source that it is and started to reduce use and increase efficiency, they could save money and improve their sustainability credentials too.

You don’t have to break the bank to save water either, and some changes are straightforward to implement too – amounting to simple changes in behaviour from staff at the most basic level.

As you can see, there are many myths around sustainability that are limiting us to reduce our carbon footprint and reach net-zero. It is time to act and be well informed about these to reach our desired sustainability goals.