Unlocking net zero in the regions: Insights from the Midlands
Zellar attended the 'Delivering world-class net zero business support in the Midlands' event, organised by the University of Derby in collaboration with Midlands Engine, East Midlands Chamber, and Sustainability West Midlands. The event brought together key sustainability figures from local authorities and regional business groups (chambers, LEPs) to explore how they can best support SMEs in their sustainability journey and propel their regions to net zero.
Here's three things we learnt:
1) Budgets: The funding landscape for local authorities has undergone significant changes since Brexit. The old ERDF funding is coming to an end and been replaced by smaller budgets under the new UKSPF scheme.
The upshot is that Local Authorities are having to find new and innovative methods to meet their sustainability goals. The evolving funding structure demands a creative transition, where authorities will need to do more with less. However, this situation also presents an opportunity to embrace innovation and digital experiences, enabling local authorities to reach more businesses, more quickly and at a lower cost – including forging more partnerships with the private sector for everything from tech platforms to loans.
2) Reporting: Reporting outcomes to any funding is crucial - but the current status-quo is prohibitive to getting funding out there as the current evaluation framework is based on assessing funding across a broad range of business reasons, and doesn’t look at sustainability programmes, in isolation. Many of the delegates agreed that SME participation in any net zero programme is the only real measure that counts whilst we are still in the very early stages. Action is the only real metric here.
3) Speed: Currently Local Authorities can’t operate at the pace of SMEs. There are often sprawling gaps between applying for funding and the delivery of funds. This has been exacerbated during the cost of doing business crisis, where every minute's delay to a sustainability investment, like solar panels is costing the business money. Delegates agreed that Local Authorities need to speed up their ability to manage and process risk decisions.
During the event, a number of the regional partners on our Get Zero Get Zellar programme spoke about how Zellar has helped them to kickstart sustainability in their region. In particular how we’re enabling authorities to measure progress and understand trends and targets, helping them to justify funding support programmes.
12 regions across the UK have currently signed up to Get Zero Get Zellar to help SMEs take climate action and get their region to net zero. If you want to unlock sustainability across local businesses in your region and accelerate your journey to net zero, join the wave of regional partners.