Following a busy B Corp month, we wanted to keep the conversation going by addressing the importance of business advocacy and acknowledging the influence of business, whether that be ours or that of others. We always aim to add our voice to where it counts.
As a small business always striving to achieve high environmental standards, in the coffee industry and in our community here in Scotland, UK. We want to highlight the importance of small organisations like ours speaking up on sustainability efforts. We find that being transparent and sharing knowledge, in addition to devoting time to learning from others, is essential in our move towards net zero.
Having Martha, our Sustainability Coordinator, on our team allows us to progress our learnings and to engage on a local and international level. This year we have been fortunate enough to do just that.
This blog shares Martha's recent experiences participating in a Fossil to Clean workshop, part of an international coalition, and Step Up to Net Zero workshops. These workshops ran with the ambition to develop toolkits to help businesses on their environmental journey and to learn from each other. By sharing these experiences we aim to appeal to other small businesses, encouraging their collaboration and advocacy in the private sector.
Fossil to Clean Taskforce: Business Action Checklists:
Dear Green has been supporting the We Mean Business Coalition for a while that is why we were asked to join their 'Fossil to Clean: Business Action Checklists – Taskforce' to help co-create business action checklists that identify actions that businesses can take in the near term (2-5 years) to start phasing out fossil fuels and scaling clean solutions. The checklist aims to simplify business climate actions into a more explicit demand signal, going from fossil to clean, and will complement existing decarbonisation guidance.
At Dear Green, we were involved in giving feedback and our perspective on the overall strategy, but most of all it was also just a great space for us to listen and learn. The task force had some large companies participating, organisations that are much further advanced than us. It was a huge opportunity to learn about different approaches and resources to improve our net-zero journey.
Read more about the campaign here.
Glasgow's Step Up to Net Zero programme - ACTS toolkit
Martha’s role as Sustainability Coordinator at Dear Green started with the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, Step Up to Net Zero programme. Since then, two more cohorts of businesses have participated in this programme. To further help Scottish businesses on their net-zero journey, the programme launched a workshop series with the businesses that had already participated to collaborate on creating a specific resource platform designed by local businesses for local businesses, tied to different sectors. This was only possible due to funding by Scottish Enterprise.
In the first week of March 2025, we were part of the launch of the toolkit and presented Dear Green as a case study of our net-zero efforts to other manufacturing businesses. Click here to test out the toolkit.
For Martha, this was a great personal journey, allowing a local connection and a platform to share similar challenges with SMEs in Glasgow. Allowing time to think about how we can support one another to switch to a more collaborative mindset instead of a competitive one.
Read more about the programme here .
Our findings…
Both workshops have not only connected Dear Green with other businesses striving towards better sustainable business models, but also let us come together on similar struggles. Sometimes it pays to share frustrations and collectively reenergise and find solutions to common problems. Whilst the We Mean Business Coalition’s Fossil to Clean campaign is a global movement of businesses, led by the attendance of mainly larger businesses, this was sometimes an intimidating space for a small business to be in, accepting that by listening and learning we are contributing too, is a valid reason to participate.
All in all, we deepened our learning about how other businesses in various sectors operate, depending on the sector and size of the carbon emissions and environmental challenges. To conclude, the support of local policy and government fully contributes to the potential positive impact small businesses can make. The importance of sharing experiences and igniting conversations creates interest at a local level, which can inform councils to invest meaningfully in supporting the net-zero journey and to actually meet the targets all businesses are so enthused about.
What we (you) can do as a small business
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Speak up - show up - participate
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Support petitions and write to your MP
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Social Media - use your platform to talk about environmental topics
If anyone wants to continue the conversation, feel free to get in touch at sustainability@deargreencoffee.com
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