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How To Launch A Sustainable Business

Businesses have a big role to play in helping to tackle the climate crisis. In the UK, the commercial sector was responsible for <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ab0bfb0-b37c-463d-b132-0944b6fe8e8b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">18% of CO2 emissions in 2018</a> and in the US, industry accounted for <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/7ab0bfb0-b37c-463d-b132-0944b6fe8e8b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more than a fifth</a> of greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses need to play their part to make emissions reductions in order for us to collectively meet the 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. 
You might think that as a small business that is just starting out, your actions will have very little impact. However, according to the World bank, small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) make up about<a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/smefinance" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 90% of businesses</a> and account for <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/smefinance">50% of employment</a> worldwide. If every new business that was launched did everything they could to help the planet as they started out, think of the difference it would make. 
Being sustainable also just makes good business sense. There is now a huge market for environmentally-friendly products or platforms. <a href="https://www.porternovelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20_2015-Cone-Communications-Ebiquity-Global-CSR-Study.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">93% of global citizens</a> have a positive image of companies that support environmental and social causes, with <a href="https://www.porternovelli.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/20_2015-Cone-Communications-Ebiquity-Global-CSR-Study.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">80% </a>saying they would be willing to buy a product from an unknown brand with stronger environmental commitments.  This means that if you make the effort to launch your business in a way that is beneficial to the environment, and get your messaging right about it, then you will have access to a whole network of environmentally conscious customers right from the start. 
Starting out sustainably is also easier in the long run. If you are just beginning your business journey, you are in a unique position. You can make your organisation sustainable right from the start! Not only will this make a bigger impact on the planet, but it will also make your lives a lot easier. It&#8217;s a lot more simple to start out right, then to have to change everything later. 
Sometimes it can be difficult to know where to start, especially when you are a small team with limited resources. So, our team has put together a guide with our top tips on launching a sustainable business:
1. Make your product sustainable 
Regardless of what your business product is, think about how the product itself can help the environment. Start off by designing your product with sustainability in mind. If you make clothes, make them out of sustainable materials (organic cotton or hemp, recycled plastic bottles etc.); if you make food, use organic and local ingredients; if you are an event planning company, make your unique selling point that you only plan sustainable events. If you start off with sustainability designed into your product, you are starting off well. To go even further, you could make your product <a href="http://www.ecologi.com/business/how-to-make-your-business-carbon-neutral">carbon neutral</a> right from the start, or <a href="http://www.ecologi.com/business/how-to-plant-trees-with-your-business-products">plant trees</a> for every product you sell. 
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2. 100% renewable energy 
This might be a pretty obvious tip, but that&#8217;s because it&#8217;s important! Make sure wherever possible, when you are using energy, it comes from renewable sources. Whether you are working from home or acquiring office or factory space, power it with renewable energy. This is easier to do when moving into a new space, then it is later when your operations are up and running. Some great options for renewable energy providers include <a href="https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ecotricity</a> and <a href="https://www.ovoenergy.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ovo energy</a>. 
3. Green web hosting 
Whatever business you are launching, it&#8217;s fairly safe to assume that you will have a website. This means that one easy step you can take is to host this website on a server that operates using 100% renewable energy. An example is <a href="https://krystal.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Krystal hosting.</a> These guys use green energy for their power, all their operations, and for their data centre. This means that your website will be powered entirely by the sun, wind and sea. 
Once your business is established, and your website is in constant use, it is a long process of migration to a new web hosting provider. It&#8217;s best to pick a good one right from the start! 
If you are yet to create a website, you can use <a href="https://www.create.net/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">create.net</a> to design and build a website that is powered by renewable energy. 
4. Be picky about your suppliers 
This is the big one. And the tricky one. Supply chains hold the biggest opportunities for breakthroughs in sustainability. The typical consumer company’s supply chain creates a far greater environmental cost than its own operations and can account for up to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/starting-at-the-source-sustainability-in-supply-chains#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">80% of the greenhouse gas emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/starting-at-the-source-sustainability-in-supply-chains#" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90% of the impact</a> on air, water, biodiversity and geological resources. 
Again just starting out puts your company in a unique position to get this right the first time round. Most established supply chains are not set up to meet sustainable and ethical principles, but yours can be. It’s easier to pick sustainable suppliers from the start, than to switch suppliers later on, or to work with difficult suppliers to change their polluting ways.
The key is to think of every stage in your supply chain: where the raw materials are coming from; what factory the products are made in; and how your waste is disposed of at the end. It helps to know what you are looking for. A good tip is to write an ethical sourcing guide and write down all the things that are important to you. For example that all supplies need to be organic, or recyclable; all workers need to be paid a living wage; or where possible all operations need to be powered with renewable energy. You can consult this when searching for suppliers, and check whether they meet your criteria. 
This process can take a long time, but it&#8217;s worthwhile implementing from the start, and don’t worry if you don&#8217;t get it perfect. A couple of good ideas to get you started on your search include: <a href="https://reboxed.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reboxed </a>to buy refurbished tech equipment; <a href="https://globechain.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Globechain</a> to find second-hand items of all kinds; and <a href="https://thefirstmile.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Firstmile</a> to sustainably dispose of your waste. 
5. Sustainable Search Engines 
One easy way to increase your business&#8217;s climate impact immediately is to install a sustainable search engine on all of your company devices. This means that with every google search you will be planting trees and funding charities that are doing great things. <a href="https://www.ecosia.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ecosia</a> is the most famous charitable search engine, and they donate about 80% of the profits that they make from advertising to planting trees. So far they have planted over 120 million trees! Another great option is <a href="https://www.searchscene.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SearchScene</a>, which donates 95% of their profits to charities, with a focus on supporting those that help fight climate change, and those that alleviate the suffering caused by it.
6. Greening your finances
One of the first steps to setting up your business is to set up your bank account. This is another opportunity to incorporate sustainability by using ethical, environmentally friendly banks that invest in good things. 
There is an increasing awareness that banks are ‘carbon majors’ alongside the fossil fuel producers themselves. Banks globally have provided<a href="https://www.ran.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Banking_on_Climate_Change__2020_vF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $2.7 trillion in financing</a> for fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement, and banking for fossil fuels rose <a href="https://www.ran.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Banking_on_Climate_Change__2020_vF.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$736 billion in 2019</a> alone. Banks fund environmental degradation by funding fossil fuels,  deforestation,  and extractive mining industries, with most major banks being implicated. Instead of helping to finance environmental degradation, set up your accounts with banks that will invest your money in projects that do good. 
An example is <a href="https://www.triodos.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Triodos bank</a>, which focuses its activities across three overarching themes: environmental, cultural, and social. These cover a broad range of sectors &#8211; from renewable energy, organic farming, and social housing through to arts and culture, charities, and education. One of their key values is transparency and they publish details of every organisation they finance on their website, so you can see for yourself how your money is delivering positive change.

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7. Pensions with intentions
Employers have to provide a workplace pension scheme for eligible staff as soon as your first member of staff starts working for you. This is another area where you can, yes we say it again, do it right from the start by making sure your pensions align with your values and support the things that your organisation works for and believes in. 
There is £3 trillion in the UK pensions pot alone. This is money that could be used to do something good like investing in renewable energy, green infrastructure, or companies with extremely high environmental standards; or it could be invested in fossil fuels, tobacco or the worst-polluting companies. 
When setting up your employees pensions schemes, make sure that you know where the money is going, and that it is going somewhere good. <a href="https://makemymoneymatter.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Make My Money Matter </a>has some great resources to help you with this, including examples of pensions funds that are doing good things for the planet, such as the Church of England Pension Fund, the Environment Agency Pensions Fund, and NEST. 
Don’t undermine all the good work your business has been doing by investing in something damaging to the environment without even realising it!

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<h3>Make sustainability part of your business mission statement </h3>
When you are launching a new business, it&#8217;s important to think about why you are doing it, and what values and ethics you stand for. One of the most important things you can do is to found your business on sustainable values, and for every big decision you make, or wherever your journey goes, take the impacts on the environment into account. Learn more about our <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/business">carbon offset programs for business </a>and for more great tips check out our guide on <a href="https://x.ecologi.com/business/how-to-reduce-your-business-carbon-emissions">how to reduce your business carbon emissions</a>.

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UK Voluntary Carbon Market Guide: Best Practices for Climate Action

The voluntary carbon market plays an important role in corporate climate strategies – but its effectiveness relies on buyers doing due diligence and rigorous quality assessment on each project, as well as placing the purchase of credits in the right place in the climate journey.
To ensure meaningful climate impact, businesses must develop a comprehensive carbon strategy and find ways to fund only high-quality credits in the voluntary carbon market – and this guide shows you how to do so with Ecologi.

<h2>Table of contents</h2>
<ul>
<li>When to buy carbon credits</li>
<li>Our new carbon projects assessment framework</li>
<li>Ecologi&#8217;s core due diligence principles</li>
<li>How Ecologi scores and ranks carbon credit projects</li>
<li>Questions to ask your carbon credit supplier</li>
<li>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</li>
</ul>

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<h2>When should businesses buy carbon credits in the voluntary market?</h2>
Businesses must not use credits in place of making direct, measurable reductions in their emissions. Instead, follow these steps to ensure you buy your carbon credits on the right step of your corporate climate action journey, and in the right way:
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Measure your emissions first – to allow you to understand where your business’s emissions are coming from. 
</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Set science-based targets and work towards them – set ambitious targets aligned with the SBTi and compatible with the global 1.5ºC warming target.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Beyond value chain mitigation (BVCM) – design your BVCM portfolio to work alongside your decarbonisation plan and address your unabated emissions in each reporting year. Align it with SBTi guidance and the Oxford Principles. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Buy high-quality carbon credits – use this guide to ensure the carbon credits you buy meet rigorous quality standards. Remember, under the SBTi framework you’ll also need permanent carbon removal credits for neutralising your residual emissions when you reach your net-zero date.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Disclose and report transparently – publicly disclose information about your carbon credit purchases, and clearly communicate the limited role of carbon credits in your broader sustainability strategy.</li>
</ol>

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<h2>Ecologi&#8217;s carbon project assessment framework</h2>
In April 2025, we published a report summarising how we assess carbon credit projects against our rigorous proprietary rubric. A snapshot of what goes into our carbon credit project assessment is below, or you <a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">download the full whitepaper here</a>.

<h2>Carbon project due diligence: Ecologi’s core principles</h2>
At Ecologi, we maintain general due diligence principles which we apply universally across the voluntary carbon market, to support our efforts to supply only high-quality carbon credits.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">ICROA-endorsed standards only – we supply credits exclusively from carbon standards which are ICROA-endorsed.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Responsive to ICVCM decisions – we support the ICVCM’s two-tick approach to providing CCP-Approval to project methodologies, and we go further still, to assess individual projects on their merits and limitations as well.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Keep the carbon credit life cycle as short as possible – 75% of our credits in 2024 came directly from project developers and their nominated dispensaries (as opposed to intermediaries on the secondary market), maximising the proportion of purchase price which goes to the developer.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Locally-appropriate projects only – we take care to ensure that supported projects are being applied in appropriate geographies, where they can have the greatest impact.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Deep project-level scrutiny – our extensive assessment criteria are specific to each type of project, and we assess every project against these criteria, ensuring the project’s specifics have been taken into account.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Methodological consensus – we synthesise data we receive from our partners Sylvera, BeZero Carbon, Calyx Global and Renoster) with our own in-house analysis to uncover where there is consensus about project quality, and improve confidence.</li>
</ul>

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<h2>How to evaluate carbon credits: Ecologi&#8217;s scoring methodology</h2>
We designed a three-layer assessment process which takes into account the merits and limitations of the carbon standard used, the carbon credit methodology used, and of the individual project design.
The tables below summarise some of the data inputs we use at each stage.

<h3>Assessment level: Carbon Standard</h3>
Examples: Gold Standard, Verra, Puro Earth, Isometric, Plan Vivo.

<h3>Assessment level: Methodology (or ‘Protocol’)</h3>
Examples: GS TPDDTEC, VM0048, ACM0002.

<h3>Assessment level: Project</h3>
Examples: GS 10790, VCS 1571.

Criteria in the assessment are categorised as either quality criteria or risk criteria, and are segmented by our three pillars of impact: Climate, Nature and People. Based on how it meets each criterion, the project gains points for quality criteria, and loses points for excess risk – ultimately giving a risk-adjusted value out of 100 for each of these pillars.
Having gathered our risk-adjusted pillar scores, we use our own unique scoring formula which weights the risk-adjusted Climate score of the project equally with the combined risk-adjusted Nature and People scores. The formula then produces an ‘overall’ score (also out of 100) for the project. In order to be supplied by Ecologi, projects must meet a minimum overall score of 80, and must achieve no lower than 65 in any given risk-adjusted pillar score.

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<h2>Key questions to ask carbon credit suppliers</h2>
Selecting the right carbon credit provider is important to help guide you to make informed choices as part of your corporate sustainability strategy. Before purchasing carbon credits, businesses should ask:
<h3>Project quality </h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you assess/validate/underwrite project quality? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do your projects get good ratings from the ratings agencies? If so, what ratings are they?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you source credits directly from project developers, or from the secondary market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you monitor projects over time to ensure continued success, and how do you remedy it, if a project&#8217;s quality drops?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Due diligence</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you ensure you are supporting the right projects in the right locations?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you account for project permanence and mitigate risks?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">What makes your projects additional?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you assess the project&#8217;s impacts on climate, nature and people?</li>
</ul>
<h3>Positioning</h3>
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you contribute to the development of a high integrity voluntary carbon market?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you align your portfolios with the Oxford Principles? If so, how?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">How do you reflect ICVCM guidance on carbon credit methodologies and technologies?</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Do you build multi-year portfolios that align to mid- &amp; long-term SBTs?</li>
</ul>
As the voluntary carbon market evolves, corporate buyers have the power and the responsibility to demand high-impact credits to drive real climate progress. This means buyers have a responsibility to do due diligence before placing an order for carbon credits.

<h2>Take action in the voluntary carbon market</h2>
As a business committed to corporate climate action, understanding the voluntary carbon market is essential for making informed decisions about carbon credits. Our comprehensive whitepaper provides deeper insights into creating an effective sustainability strategy.
<a href="https://cms-assets.offset.earth/app/uploads/20250428124112/Ecologi_Whitepaper_A4.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download our full whitepaper</a> to learn how your business can navigate the voluntary carbon market with confidence.

<h2>Connect with one of our climate experts</h2>
Please complete our form to arrange a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals and get a tailored solution for your business.

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