Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of introducing voluntary climate and nature reporting frameworks for small businesses.

To support the UK’s transition to net zero, the Government considers it important to ensure that companies with a material economic or environmental impact or exposure assess, disclose and ultimately take actions against climate-related risks and opportunities. In light of this, from 6 April 2022, over 1,300 of the largest UK-registered companies and financial institutions will have to disclose climate-related financial information on a mandatory basis – in line with recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.

The Government’s longer-term ambition is for this to lead to the development of best practice, to support smaller companies to disclose should they wish to.

The Government continues to encourage small businesses to join the Race to Zero and make a net zero commitment, with over 2,800 doing so to date.