SMEs responsible for best green innovation, says business charity

In its annual report, to be published today, the Mayday Network, a collaboration of businesses taking action on climate change, highlights some of the innovative green business ideas that its members are implementing and concludes the majority originate from SMEs. The charity has seen its membership increase by 105 per cent in the last year and most of those new sign-ups are small and micro businesses.

"The most exciting sustainable innovations are coming from the SMEs," said Katie Webber, Mayday campaign director. "In one case two SME businesses that met at a Mayday Summit in 2008 have just completed a groundbreaking anaerobic digestion (AD) plant."

The two companies are East of England independent brewery Adnams and the Bio Group. They are behind Adnams BioEnergy, the first AD plant in the UK to use brewery and local food waste to produce renewable gas for injection into the National Grid.

Another transformational SME and Mayday member is InterfaceFLOR, a carpet company that has committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2020 and has already radically improved resource efficiency by closing the loop on the disposal of its products.

Mayday member and SME Greentomatocars is a green passenger car service that was an early adopter of the Prius hybrid car and has seen its fleet grow from four to 120 vehicles over four years.

This year the Mayday Network has started to work with companies to help them 'transform’ their business models, as well as help them report and reduce their carbon emissions.

"What we are hearing is it’s not so easy for big business to do transformational change and its small businesses that are taking on that role," said Webber.

The Mayday Network is part of the Prince of Wales’ Business in the Community charity.

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Related links:
www.maydaynetwork.com