The 2007 SME Climate Change Survey found that 1 in 6 Small & Medium Size Enterprises (<250 employees) have measured their carbon footprint, but that 40% intend to do it rather soon. I must say I'm slightly suspicious of these figures, not just because I had some trouble tracking down a website for Explomarket, the PR company that carried out the research (these surveys are often done for marketing purposes rather than scientific endeavour). Few, if any, SMEs I have visited in the last couple of years could quote you their energy bill, never mind a carbon footprint. I recently did a footprint for Leaf Hairdressing, an independent salon, which gave some interesting results and lead to some employees changing their mode of transport. Katie, the owner, is both committed to the environment and sees being an “eco-salon” as a business differentiator. Certainly I struggled to find any other hairdressing salon or chain, including all the big names, who even mentioned the environment on their websites. It will be interesting to see if it makes a difference over the coming months.

Today I’m talking at the Environmental Technology Transfer Club (ETTC) at the University of Teesside about this and other carbon footprinting projects we have been involved with. If footprinting is as big as the survey suggests, I fully expect to be inundated with offers of lucrative work…