How can policy better support SMEs in the pathway to Net Zero?

The publication of the Treasury Net Zero review (2021) provided an assessment of the economic implications of reaching Net Zero from a UK Treasury perspective (which crucially accepted the benefits of decarbonisation to the UK economy), while the UK Government’s recent Net Zero Strategy (2021) set out the UK’s pathway to Net Zero – the first time that a major economy had produced an overarching de. [...] Nevertheless, many of the SMEs we spoke to recognised that they would have to change the way their business operated in time and the sector experts we spoke to were eager to frame the transition to low carbon heat and the need to retrofit homes and businesses as a significant opportunity. [...] 2.1.1 Milestones for SME sectors to meet the Sixth Carbon Budget To produce the broad SME groupings for this portion of Task 1 the research team consulted the top level of the UK Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) coding (see figure 2 below), and further grouped sectors based on the similarity of their operation and typical decarbonisation pathway and excluded those which had low SME represe. [...] 53% of the total car fleet and 40% of the sectors take up EVs as part of the natural replacement 24% of the total car fleet and 14% of the total van by 2040. [...] To give an example of a devolved government, in Wales, the passage of the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015 and The Environment (Wales) Act 2016 (since amended following CCC advice) commit Wales and the Welsh Government to reducing emissions to Net Zero by 2050 and consider the well-being of future generations in all of their (and other public bodies’) decision-making.