Greener For Business wants to help “cash strapped” SMEs hit net zero but makes some pricey suggestions

Cleantech startup Greener has launched Greener for Business, a new initiative designed to assist Australian businesses in their journeys to lower emissions and achieve net zero. As part of the announcement it also revealed a partnership with Origin Energy.

According to Greener, the initiative provides business with a systematic approach to hitting net zero. Acknowledging the implementation of sustainable practices can be resource-intensive, it offers a framework that aims to simplify the transition. This covers the likes of energy, waste, electrification, packaging and logistics.

The company says its aim is to provide SMEs with feasible solutions and a central repository of government incentives to promote environmental efforts and potential cost savings.

In addition to Origin, it also has partnerships with the Australian Retailers Association (ARA), Sendle, Mr Yum, Better Packaging Co, and several city councils.

According to images provided by Greener, the platform gives businesses a check list of things they can do to be more environmentally friendly. Each item is given a difficulty rating, as well as a percentage rating of how much the change could reduce emissions, as well as possible savings.

Some examples include recycling organic waste, swapping to LED lighting, switching to electric vehicles and installing solar panels.

A snapshot of the Greener for Business platform that offers a checklist. Image: Greener.

Some of these measures certainly give credence to the argument being made regarding the cost of going green. Recycling waste and swapping to LED bulbs are a comparatively small price to pay to head towards net zero. And in the case of the latter, Greener says it can result in an energy saving cost of around $2,300 a year.

Any resources that help Australian businesses be more sustainable is a win. And in the case of Greener For Business, it’s a free one.

“Aussie SMEs make up 98% of businesses in the country and are the backbone of our economy but many are also cash-strapped, time-poor, and under huge amounts of pressure in these tough economic times. Sustainability is not front of mind,” Greener founder, Tom Ferrier, said in an email to SmartCompany.

“Greener is changing all that with a simple platform that can help them save money and the planet. All at the same time. We’re starting with one of the best ways to reduce emissions from electricity usage that businesses can do in under 5 minutes — switch to 100% GreenPower in partnership with Origin.”

The platform isn’t just a checklist. Greener says the collective aim is to provide SMEs with solutions and a central place to promote government incentives to be more environmentally friendly and also potentially unlock some cost savings.

And partnerships such as the one with Origin mean Greener can offer users solutions and then them straight to said partners. Greener has also confirmed with SmartCompany that some partnerships do work on a bounty agreement.

“We’re working with different partners in different ways to create value-aligned partnerships. However there always remains one constant, the partnership must be win/win, otherwise, it won’t be sustainable and we won’t embark on it,” Ferrier told SmartCompany.

“For some partners that means providing our members with exclusive offers and discounts to help them switch to products and services that help reduce their emissions, and paying a small commission to Greener to support the platform. For other partners, we work with them to develop a partnership structure that aligns with their business and climate objectives.

“Ultimately our goal with any of the partners we work with is to ensure that we deliver on our promise of making it easy for businesses to save money by taking climate action, while also helping to put Greener for Business in the hands of as many SMBs as possible to scale its impact.”

Our view

This is great, but it’s worth noting that not all of the advice on the platform is particularly cost-effective for businesses in the short to medium term.

For many businesses, having a platform tell you it’s a good idea to swap cars, install solar panels and upgrade your hot water is perhaps a little easier said than done. Especially when Greener’s own press release makes the argument that 43% of Australian small businesses are running at a loss and 48% fail within the first four years.

As a reminder, the cheapest EV in Australia is the recently-announced BYD Dolphin at $38,890. At the time of writing, only five EVs in Australia cost under $50,000.

As for solar panels, on average it costs between $4,000 and $15,000 to install them before government rebates are applied.

Of course, having net-zero related advice and resources in one place, especially for free, will be incredibly helpful for some SMEs, especially for those that have very few employees but still want to do the right thing.

However, pushing the “SMEs are struggling” narrative while also proposing quite a few very expensive ‘solutions’ is a little eyebrow raising.

But perhaps its more indicative of a larger problem – making sustainable choices in Australia is often not cheap, even when there’s subsidies in place. And especially when some are threatened to be prematurely removed.