By Lawrence Gosling on Small Business UK - Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
There is no doubt when the pandemic hit the UK fully in March 2020 and the first nationwide lockdown was introduced it was a crisis for businesses.
So if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur, how did you react?
Did you give up and close your business and get a job stacking shelves in a supermarket or the did you roll-up your sleeves?
After all entrepreneurs and small business owners are by their nature optimists and if they have been operating for anything length of time then they will have faced many challenges successfully, although pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime challenge which we all hope we won’t have to face again when it is truly over.
Once many businesses dusted themselves down from the shocks of the impact of the pandemic, the desire to overcome these hurdles saw clever ways to not only carry on operating, but also to make fundamental changes to the way they did things.
For some business, who had always thought of themselves as being sustainable, it was an opportunity to have a long hard look at the way they did things to see if they could become even more sustainable.
One such business is called The Syrup Room, which is based in Bournemouth and has a client base spread all over the world, which buys their unique fabricated designs.
The business started with the co-owners creating individual designs from scraps, waste and recycled material. It has grown into a sizeable operation.
But when the pandemic hit they had just taken delivery of some camper vans and were running their workshops using energy intensive machinery and considerable amounts of lighting.
So what did they do? Firstly they got a accurate handle on the actual running cost and in particular, the energy bills, by installing a smart energy meter.
And once they realised how much they were spending they looked to find ways of reducing the energy bills by moving to more sustainable, green ways of operating.
The result? Their business is flourishing and they can truly claim to be more sustainable, which is bringing them a new client base who have found them through social media. To hear more about what they did watch the video in the headline image, and see if you can get some ideas.
>Read more: From controlling costs to cutting energy bills – how did your business respond when the pandemic hit?
For more information about the benefits of smart meters please visit Smart Energy GB or contact your energy supplier to see if you’re eligible.
This article and video are part of a paid-for information campaign for Smart Energy GB.
The post How to turn a crisis into an opportunity for small businesses – going green during the pandemic appeared first on Small Business UK.
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Lawrence Gosling, Khareem Sudlow
