Our Mission

To Guide 1 Million Micro Businesses to Net Zero By 2025.

Adam Bastock, Founder

99% of businesses in the UK are small and existing guidance isn’t accessible for them to take action.

Many existing organisations and government agencies focus their efforts on advising large multinationals. Reducing the carbon impact of  Sainsburys will provide a better return on their efforts than chasing many small ones.

This has meant small businesses are often overlooked, yet together can make a huge contribution to reducing the carbon output of the UK economy. 99% of businesses in the UK are under 49 employees. 

On the other hand, much of the advice out there is focused on consumers. Organisations such as Fully Charged have brought huge change to consumers’ understanding of electric and zero carbon technology out there, but again tend to focus on big companies making big, news worthy changes rather than the small businesses making lots of small changes. 

So, there is a gap of those who are not consumers, and not big businesses, who fail to get any advice. 

Small business owners are too busy to be able to research everything about carbon emissions and sustainability. We’re here to make decisions simple, provide a clear path and make your journey to net zero as short and painless as possible.

While larger organisations chase after the 1% to make changes, we are here to advise you, the small99, on how you can make an impact today. So, please join me on this journey as we transform the carbon output of the UK’s economy, one small business at a time.

  • Adam Bastock

Our Approach

The 5 Pillars

Momentum

You won’t solve this overnight. Getting started is the key. Perfect is the enemy of progress. 

Communicate

Be honest and transparent about your successes and Challenges

Collaborate

Work with suppliers and bring them with you on your net zero journey

Reduce don’t Replace

Reduction is always the best action

Budget

Think of carbon like a budget. Carbon taxes are coming, prepare!

 

Why

We believe in giving business owners the simple tools to reduce their carbon footprint. 

How

Our guidance is easy to understand and leads to clear recommended actions.

What

We make high impact guidance for businesses to follow.

The Hidden Majority

Reduce Your Carbon: Carbon Accounting

Over the next decade (if it even takes that long) I am expecting to see Carbon become treated in a similar way to financial budgets.

 

Carbon will be a currency, and companies will need to save CO2 emissions like they do money. We’re here to make those savings easier to achieve.

That is why small99 is positioned as the “Carbon Saving Experts” rather than “money saving” – attitudes will eventually be the same. Why would you want to be purchasing carbon intensive products that will cost you more in the long run?

You’ll want to be getting as little carbon for your £ as possible. When we see carbon pricing become legislation in the next decade, this carbon accounting will be more important than ever. 

Not only will this be a beneficial lifestyle tickbox or marketing bonus, it will be vital in companies being able to access certain schemes, organisations (e.g. B Corp) and perhaps even financial support. 

If companies can’t prove due diligence around their carbon footprint, then it may cause issues similar to accounting failures. This is pure speculation, however at the corporate level there do seem to be shifts happening in this direction:

“Several large banks in the UK and US have signed up to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials, an initiative backed by Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor”

This private sector emphasis represents a shift toward a bottom-up, business-first approach that the UK prefers

How do we make money?

There are a few key ways we make money, but first let’s focus on how we don’t:

No Sponsors or advertisers – Many sites will place adverts on their site, or build relationships with companies for sponsorship. We do neither, as we don’t want our advice to be influenced by commercial gain.

No Membership  – There’s no point encouraging business owners to make changes but then gatekeeping access to the information for them to make that change. We want our advice to be free to everyone so that we can make the most practical impact.

So, how do we make money?

Affiliates

A common method of monetising content, this means that if you click a link and make a purchase on a partner’s website, Small99 may receive a payment. This can be based on action – e.g. if you completed a form (Lead Generation) or a transaction (a % based commission). These are deals we access through networks such as Affiliate Window and Skimlinks, or may have been 

Note: The availability of affiliate links does not influence our decision or recommendation. Guides are written first, and as a separate action we look for paid links. If non exist, so be it, and links remain “normal”  

If a recommended action is going to reduce your carbon footprint, we will recommend first and try to monetise it second. All affiliate links can be identified is they have a “*” next to them. 

Consultancy

If business owners don’t have time to read all of our free content, we offer paid packages such as industry specific guides and 1:1 advice that is effectively a shortcut for business owners to take action. 

If you have time, you can read up on what you need to do.  If you don’t have time but do have money, you can pay us to tell you what to do instead.  This advice is identical to what is on the website.

Events

Eventually we hope to run virtual events that bring together specific speakers on industry topics. These may attract sponsors, but are run separately to the content on our website. 

Measure your business’s impact

Answer a few questions and get an estimated carbon footprint of your business in 2 minutes.

Take action with Hero

Join our Hero platform to get a free and simple Carbon Reduction Plan for your small business so you can start acting in less than 10 minutes.