This week the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce is launching its Business Climate Leaders (BCL) programme. With the World Leaders Summit coming to a close at COP26 and the messages coming out cementing the necessity to prioritise our own climate change activity, Norfolk Chambers of Commerce’s programme is firmly in-line with its mission: to connect, support and give voice to every business in Norfolk. The business sustainability support space for SME’s is noisy and it takes time to correctly navigate through the many brilliant ideas, organisations and programmes designed to support on a carbon reduction journey that either already exist or are frequently launching . This may go some way to explain why, following a national business survey of SME’s, commissioned in 2021 by the British Chambers, when asked about measuring their carbon footprint, only 11% of respondents said yes, despite half of the respondents acknowledging that their customers are worried about the environment. 22% claimed they did not fully understand the term Net Zero and almost a third had yet to seek any advice. Chris Sargisson, CEO of the Norfolk Chambers of Commerce, said: “Every business we speak with is aware of the need to allocate time and investment to understand, devise and apply its approach to an effective carbon reduction program. Chambers support plans to help them to do just that. A dynamic, hands-on and far-reaching programme is being created that will firstly help understand what’s required; then confidently connect them to those many existing ideas, organisations and programs; and then support them to engage with an ever-evolving and adaptable programme of continued support.” This initial launch phase will see the Norfolk Chambers build the Advisory Board and actively cultivate a register of businesses, ideas, organisations and programmes that can support the programme delivery. Following this, the Chambers will develop varied events and free to access digital engagement mechanisms to ensure the programme resources are widely accessible and relevant for every business across the county. The objective of the Business Climate Leaders approach is simple; a free to access programme for every business, designed to educate, enable and support SMEs to seek, understand and apply appropriate, tested actions and activities that will put them on the path to Net Zero. The process will be governed by an Advisory Board, made up of influential exemplar business leaders to govern the work of the Business Climate Leaders programme. A programme that starts with each Net Zero engaged business electing their own Business Climate Leader. That person will act as the organisation’s key point of contact and will work directly with the BCL Programme to get them on their Net Zero journey and help keep them on track. From there the Chambers will apply a scalable support mechanism to deliver the program and create some effective success measurement tools. If you want to be involved in the program, please do get in touch [email protected]
