Meet Adam Bastock, Founder of Small 99, a business offering carbon reduction plans for companies of up to 20 employees. I first came across Adam via the fantastic ‘People Planet Pint’ networking community that he’s set up all across the UK and into Europe.

Alongside People Planet Pint, Small 99 delivers workshops and training on sustainability, and the ‘Small 99 Hero’ technology platform. This provides a pathway for small businesses to achieve their sustainability goals in easy steps.

Adam’s view is that smaller businesses tend to be more agile and responsive than larger organisations. And since 90% of all UK businesses have fewer than 20 employees, their carbon reduction impact could be huge.

The service, which was priced at £15/month, is currently (October 2023) free – check it out here.

We talked about the challenge of pricing (is £15 too much or too little?), measuring ‘real world’ impact (two 5-person businesses can be very, very different…) and the need to sometimes just ‘crack on’.

Barriers to growth? Whilst it’s relatively simple to get the early minority and innovators on board, Adam really wants to get the climate majority (the ‘persuadables’) to engage. Economic arguments such as cheaper electricity from solar panels, or reducing the administrative burden of net-zero reporting can play into this, but a lot of it’s about behaviour change and that takes time.

This was a fascinating discussion about getting small businesses to take climate action in a really practical way. Take a listen!