Why ESG is Good for Business AND The Planet

How do I approach ESG? 

A useful way to start is to work out what really matters to your business. You do not need a formal workshop or a big matrix on the wall. Just think about the issues that matter most in day-to-day life. If you are office-based, your biggest environmental issues might be utilities, travel and IT equipment. If you make physical products, it could be waste, packaging and shipping. A company delivering services may look at people, trust and data handling perspectives. The aim is to focus on what is relevant, what can be actioned and what can be measured. It does not need to be a huge list copied from a corporate website. 

How do I start? 

As SMEs must focus on time, costs and cash, a focused approach works better.  

Try this:  

1. Topics: Pick the three to five areas where you can make the biggest difference, or where customers are most likely to ask questions. Creating a clear starting point stops ESG from becoming a never-ending admin task. 

1. Content: Put a few short policies in place. Keep them simple. You might create an environmental policy saying you want to reduce waste, cut unnecessary travel and use energy sensibly. Similarly, a simple equality and inclusion policy, a health and wellbeing policy, and a short supplier code of conduct for external partners may be enough.  
   These are not legal essays. In plain English, they explain what matters to your business and how you try to work. Make sure to add review dates on policies to show they are relevant and up to date. 

1. Actions: Turn these intentions into a few clear actions. If you want to reduce environmental impact, you might switch to renewables, cut printing, recycle properly, buy refurbished kit where it makes sense, or plan meetings to reduce travel. If you’re building actions that focus on your people, diarise regular check-ins, encourage flexible working (if that works for you) or give staff more say in how things are done. Where governance is covered you might tighten up how you assess risk, store documents, approve spending or choose suppliers. 

1. Measure: Decide what can be measured and track it. Simple things to account for could be business travel, waste and recycling, wellbeing or core policy creation. Look at some of the common requests in customer questionnaires, tenders and supplier checks. 

Remember: if you can measure it, you can manage it. 

1. Report: Recording progress shouldn’t be onerous either; you don’t need a big colourful dashboard. The report should cover available data to generate information and show progress, answer questions and show you take ESG seriously.  
    

The advantages of having an ESG policy in place 

Owners and founders don’t always view ESG as a business benefit, but it can help you win sales. Increasingly businesses are asked to complete supplier questionnaires or answer ESG questions in tender documents. If you already have your key policies, a few simple actions and some basic measures to hand, those forms become much easier. You stop having to start from scratch every time which saves time, reduces stress and shows your business is more organised. 

ESG can also save money. SMEs often find the easiest wins come from cutting waste, printing less and being more careful about travel and purchasing. None of this is groundbreaking, but it adds up. Better habits can protect margins, and that matters most as it affects the bottom line. 

Over time cost savings can support growth in cash reserves, result in fewer unexpected costs, stronger retained profits and a business that is lower risk to customers, funders and insurers. Businesses seeking Seed or Series A investment will find investors and Angels ask for details about your ESG. 

ESG can also help with resilience. Small businesses can be hit hard by sudden changes, whether a supplier issue, a rise in costs, a new client requirement or a problem that damages trust. If you know where your weak points are, keep a few basics in place and reviewing them regularly means you are less likely to be caught off guard. 

You do not need to publish a glossy annual report to make this useful; a short document is enough. It might be a two- or three-page ESG summary that covers your key areas, policies in place, actions taken and simple measures tracked. This report can be updated once or twice a year and shared when a client, funder or partner asks for information. 

Summary 

In essence, keep it manageable:  

• Choose three priority areas.  

• Write three to five short policies.  

• Pick a few actions you can accomplish in the next six months.  

• Track measures that are easy to collect.  

• Review every quarter or every six months.  

Small steps are completely fine. The main thing is not to think of ESG as something only bigger business needs to worry about. 

ESG can help SMEs. It can make you easier to buy from, easier to trust and be better prepared for the questions customers are starting to ask.  

In the end, that is what good ESG looks like for a start-up and scale-up. It isn’t a pile of jargon. It is a clear, practical way to run your business well and show others that you do.