Expert opinion by Stuart Dawks, CEO at PECT, featured in Azets Greater Peterborough Business Survey 2026.
With aspirations to achieve Net Zero, Peterborough City Council has set ambitious carbon reduction targets and has historically been at the forefront of sustainability initiatives. 2026 has seen an increase in the proportion of businesses reporting that environmental practices are now ‘business as usual’. However, this confidence does not appear to be consistent across the wider business community, and the survey data suggests we still have a long way to go!
While the proportion of organisations embedding environmental sustainability increased from 15% to 36% in 2025, the share of organisations taking action dropped from 72%, to 56%. The data suggests that earlier gains in identifying opportunities and committing to change have not translated into implementation, indicating a gap between intention and action. At the same time, expectations of achieving carbon neutrality within the next five years have declined significantly from 2025.
With 56% of organisations still struggling to commit to changing current practices, it is clear that there is much still to do to support them in their journey.
Barriers to sustainability
Across businesses, progress on sustainability is being constrained by a combination of financial, operational and capability-related barriers. Many organisations have become reliant on grant funding to deliver capital energysaving improvements, and there are ongoing delays to wider capital investment projects. A shifting local policy landscape is also affecting the level and consistency of support available to businesses.
Alongside these external factors, many businesses report internal constraints, including limited knowledge of how to reduce carbon emissions, insufficient employee awareness to cut energy use, and a lack of time and resources to implement changes.
Data quality remains a significant issue, limiting organisations’ ability to understand their energy consumption and emissions, calculate carbon footprints, and prioritise effective actions. In some cases, planning requirements can add further complexity to implementing energy and carbon saving projects, while gaps in transport infrastructure continue to hinder a shift to lower-carbon commuting and fleet options (including electric vehicles, biofuels, and alternatives for vans and HGVs).
At the same time, businesses are facing sustained increases in energy costs driven by global events, alongside growing pressure to understand and reduce their carbon emissions, particularly from customers who are actively decarbonising their supply chains.
With 78% of Peterborough businesses reporting that operating costs will increase next year and a big drop in the percentage of businesses expecting to increase investment in capital projects, there is a definite need to focus on quick wins to reduce energy usage.
What businesses can be doing
To make progress in the short term, businesses can prioritise practical actions that reduce both costs and emissions. This includes carrying out energy audits, reducing vehicle mileage and fuel consumption, and training employees so they understand how day-to-day behaviours can reduce consumption. Ensuring that accurate information about energy and fuel use is available can enable data driven decision making to prioritise improvement activities.
Organisations can also strengthen decision making by assessing the return on investment for energy-saving measures, rather than waiting for grant support. This enables savings to be realised sooner and reinvested to fund further improvements. Where capability or data is a barrier, engaging independent expert support can help calculate environmental impact and identify the most meaningful actions to reduce it.
What’s next?
As always, collaboration between businesses, policymakers and educational institutions will be critical in ensuring a smooth and successful transition to a greener economy. But with mounting pressure from supply chains to understand and reduce environmental impact, along with increasing likelihood of Government regulation affecting smaller organisations, taking action sooner rather than later must be strongly considered.
Add to this the growing demand from consumers and employees for companies to be considering their environmental impact, the commercial and reputation benefits alone should enable businesses to prioritise environmental sustainability.
Read the full survey analysis here