Small and medium enterprises account for the majority of all business, but often don't spend the time focusing on their environmental impact. It's more important than ever for SMEs to develop and implement a sustainability strategy. And accountants and finance professionals play a key role in this strategy.
As a trusted business advisor, you are in the ideal position to support colleagues and clients by offering guidance and advice on sustainability and providing useful analysis of the environmental decisions SMEs are making on a day-to-day basis.
Some might assume that becoming more sustainable is costly, but it can have a positive impact on small businesses. Just by looking at water and energy usage, waste emissions and exploring renewable resources you can help your business and clients save money and reduce their impact on the environment.
Environmental Management (EM) within SMEs is key to make sure that environmental costs are understood and environmental impact, measured. EM can help evaluate the impact of environmental risks and incorporates environmental indicators into routine performance monitoring. It also measures actions against environmentally sound best practises.
Some larger organisations enhance their brand by focusing on sustainability. Innocent Drinks, for example, purchase fruit for their smoothies through the Rainforest Alliance, which collaborates with farmers to preserve the biodiversity of the land and safeguard the rights of farmworkers. They used EM to identify true costs by clarifying the environmental impacts caused by material acquisition and processing, manufacturing and distribution. They developed an innovative solution to create a greener impact.
Big businesses have the money to make these green changes, but measures don't always have to be so grand or expensive. In some cases, SMEs can seek funding to become greener and accountants can provide sustainability reporting and assurance services whilst calculating the potential loss of earnings if customers decide to switch to a more eco-conscious competitor. SMEs should be aware of opportunities and their applicability to them. SMEs are the backbone of the world’s economy, and therefore play a critical part in the transition to greater sustainability.
There may be a temptation not to feature environmental impacts in a business report but the actions we take – or fail to take – now will undoubtedly define our future, and that of generations to come. Within SMEs, accountants are at the heart of the business so they can play a key role in helping the sustainability push. Implementing EM and having a shared vision will create a strong green transformation.
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