Businesses
Making Nottingham a carbon neutral city is everyone’s business
There’s a lot of information out there and working towards a better, more sustainable future can seem overwhelming. Our aim is to support your organisation on your journey by raising awareness about the climate crisis, sharing information and resources, and encouraging positive action.
Where to start?
As tackling the climate crisis becomes more urgent, many businesses want to understand the impact they are having on the environment. Calculating your organisation’s carbon emissions is the first step to becoming a carbon neutral business. Establishing a baseline will enable you to create a plan to reduce emissions. As well as becoming a more sustainable business, minimising your carbon footprint can help you to save money, improve employee wellbeing, and make your organisation more attractive to customers.
There are helpful tools which will hep you calculate the carbon footprint of small- and medium-sized businesses. It is based on direct emissions from fuel consumption (Scope 1 emissions) and indirect emissions from energy purchased by your organisation (Scope 2 emissions).
The Carbon Trust: Calculate your organisation’s carbon footprint now
SME Climate Hub: SME Climate Hub
Support available
Once you know what your carbon footprint looks like, there is local support and advice to help you on your way.
🚲 Workplace Travel Service
Sustrans are working in partnership with Nottingham City Council’s Workplace Travel service to provide free events and activities for workplaces in the city. Employees can take part in free bike safety checks, cycle security marking, personal travel planning, cycle confidence sessions and a range of other active travel activities.
Get in touch by emailing nottinghamworkplaces@sustrans.org.uk stating the number of employees and where your workplace is within the city.
🛒 Business Decarbonisation Grant
The Business Decarbonisation Grant’s main objective is to support retail businesses in eligible areas of Nottingham to reduce their energy related costs whilst also seeking to reduce the city’s carbon emissions.
The grant will support businesses seeking to invest in carbon reduction technologies, products and services that will directly reduce their energy consumption, reducing their overheads and carbon emissions by offering a financial incentive directly to support and promote these investments. This grant scheme is designed to allow businesses to invest in the short term for their longer-term sustainability and support the City of Nottingham and the UK government to achieve our Net Zero targets.
The maximum grant per business is £5,000 and the minimum grant per business is £500. The grant will support up to 50% of the costs of installing carbon reduction measures, the remaining funds being provided by the business.
Typical projects could be:
- Installation of LED lights throughout the business property
- Installation of energy efficient heating and cooling systems
- Installation of insulation
Find our more: Business Support Grants - Nottingham City Council
🤝 East Midlands Chamber Sustainability
East Midlands Chamber's Sustainable East Midlands campaign supports businesses in engaging with the green agenda. They are helping to drive commercially focused strategies to help local businesses design innovative sustainability solutions through support, summits and events.
Find out more: Sustainable East Midlands - East Midlands Chamber (emc-dnl.co.uk)
The CN28 business webinar series
To help organisations understand how to begin their carbon reduction journey, we ran a series of webinars to share tips, resources, and local opportunities. Click the links to watch them back:
Once you’re ready to start reducing your organisation’s carbon emissions, why not sign up to the city’s We Support CN28 scheme? More than 40 organisations are already signed up and taking action to reduce their environmental impact. Find out more about We Support CN28.