The Carbon Trust Standard has made it easier and more cost effective for the UK’s SMEs to cut their carbon footprints and to reduce their energy costs.
It has introduced a new online application process that is specifically designed to enable small and growing businesses to be assessed and certified cost effectively against the requirements of the Carbon Trust Standard.
The new service is available to organisations with an energy spend of up to £50,000.
Of the 400 businesses that have achieved the Carbon Trust Standard so far, only 17 are SMEs.
The Carbon Trust Standard Company’s new online application service will enable many more SMEs to reap the same commercial rewards as their larger counterparts by helping them quickly and simply quantify their footprint.
Harry Morrison, general manager of the Carbon Trust Standard, said: “When added together the potential for savings by SMEs could be up to £1.1 billion so carbon management is fast becoming a business imperative.
“To help them act they need tailored expert help to do the right thing and reap the business benefits. Our new assessment and certification service is a great way for small and growing companies to accurately assess and benchmark their carbon performance, support their ongoing carbon reduction programmes and most importantly independently certify and promote their carbon saving achievements to key stakeholders.
“The new online service is convenient and relatively low cost to deliver making it more affordable and easier for SMEs to tackle their carbon management performance alongside their other priorities.”
A pilot scheme aimed at measuring the impact of the service found that SMEs using the programme reduced their carbon footprint by over 7 per cent and saved nearly 5 tonnes in CO2 emissions.
