Lower costs, less risk: free sustainability support for South Australian small businesses
For most small businesses, sustainability sits on the list of things to deal with later. It competes with payroll, quoting, staffing and the work in front of you, and it rarely wins.
That calculation is changing, for two reasons that have nothing to do with good intentions. Energy is one of the few overheads a small business can genuinely reduce without cutting anything it needs. And the questions coming down supply chains about emissions are becoming a condition of holding contracts rather than a courtesy.
If you are a South Australian small or family business, there is funded support to help you work through both. 2XE delivers the Small Business Sustainability Support Program on behalf of the South Australian Government and the Office of Small and Family Business, and it includes a free one-on-one session with a sustainability advisor.
Why this has become a commercial issue
Australia’s mandatory climate reporting requirements apply to larger organisations. Those organisations cannot report on their own emissions without accounting for the emissions in their supply chains, which means they are now asking their suppliers for data.
If you supply, tender to, or subcontract for a larger business, a government department or a listed company, expect to be asked what your energy use and emissions are. Increasingly that question arrives attached to a procurement process rather than a survey.
Businesses that have already done the groundwork answer with evidence, and they are usually running at a lower cost base because the same work exposes waste. Businesses that have not started tend to meet the requirement as a deadline, with no data and no time.
The gap between those two positions is not technical knowledge. It is whether anyone has sat down and looked at the numbers.
Energy is the practical place to start
The common assumption is that reducing emissions means capital expenditure. In practice the highest returns usually come well before that.
Most businesses already hold the information they need. Energy bills, meter data and an honest walk through the site will typically show where consumption is concentrated, what is running outside operating hours, and which equipment costs more to run than it should. Understanding that picture first means any investment that follows is targeted rather than a guess.
The sequence that works is straightforward: understand your consumption, capture the no cost and low cost wins, then invest with confidence. It is also the same work that produces the emissions data you will be asked for, which is why energy efficiency and climate reporting are better treated as one project than two.
2XE CEO Nick Palousis covers this ground in a short session for the Office of Small and Family Business. Watch: A practical guide to energy efficiency →
What the program offers
The program is designed to move a business from general interest to specific, costed actions. It has three components.
A free information session. A video overview covering energy reduction, understanding your emissions, and the support available to you. A useful starting point if you are still scoping the work.
A free one-on-one consultation. A session with a 2XE sustainability advisor, focused on your business rather than general principles. There is no cost and no obligation.
A subsidised business sustainability assessment. For businesses ready to go further, a detailed assessment identifies carbon reduction actions and the return on investment attached to each one, so decisions can be made on commercial grounds. The subsidised cost is $500 excluding GST.
What happens in a free one-on-one
The session is a conversation about your operation, not a presentation. An advisor will work through:
- The specific sustainability challenges in your business and industry
- Practical efficiency improvements available to you, ranked by what pays back soonest
- How to read and interpret your own energy use and emissions data
- An assessment of where your business currently stands
- Tailored recommendations to reduce emissions and move towards net zero
You leave with a view of what to do first, what it is likely to save, and what can wait.
Who it is for?
Small and family businesses in South Australia. You do not need existing knowledge of climate reporting, and you do not need to have decided to do anything yet. The businesses that get the most out of the session tend to be the ones with rising energy costs, or a larger customer who has started asking questions.
How to get started
The program is funded, which means places are limited to a set number. Booking a free one-on-one costs nothing and commits you to nothing beyond an hour of your time.
Energy costs and reporting expectations are both moving in one direction. The advantage sits with the businesses that get organised first.
