Sustainability is a hot topic at the moment across all industries. It is acknowledged that becoming more sustainable is the key to success in the long-term for businesses. However many SMEs are struggling to adopt more energy efficient operations and systems because of the initially high cost of the products and systems as well as the complex installation processes.

However, while SMEs are struggling with the initial sustainability setup, larger companies are surging ahead, exploring different way to save more energy and cut down operating costs. Being more sustainable also has the added benefit of increasing efficiency, meaning that companies are improving, saving more money, investing and expanding. Improving sustainability has moved from being a well intended credit to the company and is now seen as a strategic edge on the competition. Larger corporations go through complex and expensive certification procedures, such as the Global Reporting Initiative that are relative to the scale of their business operations.

However, SMEs face the challenge of working out how to better benefit from being sustainable. In order for businesses in this category to be able to carry out operations in a sustained way, the social and environmental impact of the businesses actions need to be considered. It is important to get more SMEs invested in becoming more sustainable, and there are a range of tools available to help achieve this. SMEs are encouraged to use the adoption of sustainable practices as a profit centre for the business, because despite the costs initially, any and all reduction of carbon for a company leads to profit. With more larger companies adopting sustainable operations, it is becoming more and more common for larger corporations to expect a sustainability plan or procedure in place throughout their supply chain. Therefore in order to gain larger contracts and build a working relationship with larger companies in the future, the adoption of sustainable policy is paramount.