Get Net Zero is a project being led by the Sustainable Business Partnership Community Interest Company (the SBP). The SBP is a not for profit organisation that has helped over 3000 organisations reduce their impact on the environment and is always thinking up new innovative ways to help businesses and organisations be kinder to the environment and be a force for good in their communities. You can read more about the SBP and it's key staff on the website. Other SBPs were set up across the South East Region and other similar networks exist in the US, Australia and New Zealand.

Before its spin out into a Community Interest Company, the SBP  was based in West Sussex County Council's Economic Development Unit. So much has happened since the SBP begain in 1998 and the organisation continues to work closely with local authorites helping them meet the aims of their economic development and climate change stragegies. The SBP was formed by a determined group of activists from councils, the Environment Agency and universities got together and put together a programme of support to help businesses, and particularly SMEs save money and reduce their enviornmental impact through taking action on energy, energy, waste and water issues.

After 21 years helping organisation reduce their environmental impact and costs, our Managing Director realised there was a gap in support for organisations to build their own carbon reducing programmes. We wanted to build a programme that focused on positive reinforcement of good practice rather than the traditional audit approach common to Environmental Management Systems such as ISO 14001 which tend to point out what is not working rather than what is.

Shelaine's other motivation in developing Get Net Zero was to develop something that could show the full picture of an organisation's approach to sustainability - from how it treats it staff, to how it supports it's community, the local and global environment. She had witnessed first hand how the environment was often just a box to be ticked and so she wanted to find a more meaningful way to assess environmental performance in tenders.

Get Net Zero provides a new way to choose suppliers who are working hard to tackle climate change, or a way for organisations to measure and improve the carbon footprint of its supply chain.