Large corporations often set the tone for other, smaller businesses.
This isn't a question of innovation - innovation comes from all sectors of the economy. It's simply to state that when large corporations decide on something, their size and economic clout means that their decisions flow out into the rest of the economy.
Moreover, many SMEs are part of the supply chain of larger corporates. When those corporations decide they need something (e.g. an anti-slavery policy) to be adopted by all their supply chain partners, then SMEs have to act.
We're seeing the same with carbon reduction.
A recent report of corporates in the transport sector reported the following key findings:
Decarbonisation high on the agenda: 79% of respondents say that decarbonisation is a primary driver of their organisation’s investment strategy
Capital allocation rises: 34% of corporates and 66% of investors expect to devote at least EUR1 billion to decarbonisation projects and technologies over the next 24 months, versus 20% of corporates and 48% of investors over the past 24 months.
Investment increases: The majority of respondents across all subsectors anticipate significant increases (between 50% and 200%) in their investment in decarbonisation over the next five years compared to the past five years.
Ambitious plans: More than half of corporates (across all three subsectors) say that their organisation plans to cut net carbon emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared with current levels.
Those figures show that corporations are taking carbon reduction very seriously. And this increasingly means that SMEs - their supply chain partners - are going to have to take measures to ensure that they remain viable partners for the corporates that they currently work for and would like to work for in the future.
Getting on the path to #netzero today means that you're more likely to be working with a corporate tomorrow.