How to write an ESG report for a small business (step by step)

An ESG report sets out your business’s environmental, social and governance performance over a 12-month period. To write one, decide who it is for, pick a reporting period, gather your energy, travel and people data, calculate your carbon footprint, record your social and governance practices, set commitments, then write it up in a standard structure with a clear methodology. For a small business it usually runs to 8 to 20 pages including appendices.

You do not need a consultant or a sustainability team. You need about a year of bills, a rough idea of how your team travels and an honest picture of how you run things. Here is the whole process, step by step.

What goes in a small business ESG report?

Good reports follow a familiar shape. Buyers, investors and grant assessors look for these sections in roughly this order, so using them makes your report quicker to read and easier to check.

Section	What goes in it
At a glance	Total footprint, split by scope, largest source, headline people and governance facts
About you and this report	Sector, size, how you operate, reporting period, boundary
Your carbon footprint	Emissions in tCO2e by scope, per employee, and energy use in kWh
Performance by source	A short commentary on each emission source
Your people and community	Pay, training, safety, diversity, community, data protection
How you are run	Policies, who owns ESG, ethics, suppliers, certifications
Commitments and next steps	Targets, baseline year, priorities for the year ahead
Methodology and appendices	Standard used, factors, every calculation, data quality

This is the structure ESG Now uses. You can see it filled in on our sample report, or in our ESG report example for a small business. The rest of this guide is about producing each part.

Step 1: Who is the report for?

Start with the reader, because it decides what you emphasise. Think about what prompted this.

• A customer questionnaire. They will want Scope 1 and 2 figures, a target and your policies. Our supplier questionnaires hub covers the detail.
• A public sector tender. Evaluators look for a carbon baseline, a net zero commitment and social value. Larger central government contracts also need a Carbon Reduction Plan under PPN 006, and your report gives you the figures to complete one.
• A grant application. Funders want energy use in kWh and a baseline to measure savings against.
• Investors. They read the people and governance sections closely.
• Yourself. Plenty of owners write one simply to know where they stand.

The core report is the same for all of them. What changes is the covering note and which pages you point people to. One well-made report can serve every request you get this year.

Step 2: What reporting period should you use?

Pick 12 consecutive months, ideally your financial year or the most recent calendar year. Your bills, mileage and HR records are probably organised that way already, which saves a lot of digging.

Two rules make everything after this easier. Use the same period for every figure in the report, and use emission factors that match it. The UK Government publishes a new set of conversion factors every June, so a January to December 2026 report uses the 2026 set. Our guide to the 2026 DEFRA conversion factors explains how to handle a period that spans two years.

Your first report becomes your carbon baseline, the figure every future year is compared against. Choose a normal year if you can. If last year included a six-month office move, say so in the report.

Step 3: What data do you need to gather?

Less than you might fear. For most small businesses the list is:

• electricity and gas bills, or heating oil and LPG deliveries (or your floor area if you rent part of a building)
• fuel card statements or mileage for company vehicles
• staff mileage claims, plus a rough count of flights, rail trips, taxis and hotel nights
• how your team gets to work, and how many days they work from home
• bin sizes and collection frequency, and water bills if you pay them
• headcount, leavers, pay rates, benefits and training records
• any written policies, certifications and your supplier payment terms

Where you have no figure, estimate sensibly and label it. Office energy can be estimated from floor area using published benchmarks, and waste from bin sizes. If you cannot estimate something fairly, record it as a data gap rather than guessing.

How long will yours take?

Pick the option that sounds most like your business. You will see a realistic time, what to have nearby and a head start on the questions.

Which sounds most like you?

Sole trader working from homeConsultants, designers, developers, coaches10 to 15 minSole trader or freelancer in a co-working spaceA desk at a WeWork, Regus or local hub10 to 15 minSmall team in a co-working or serviced officeStartups and agencies with 2 to 25 people15 to 20 minSME with its own office and no vehiclesProfessional services, tech firms, studios20 to 30 minSME with vans, cars or regular staff travelTrades, field services, consultancies on the road30 to 45 minShop, cafe, workshop or product businessRetail, hospitality, makers and manufacturers30 to 45 min

Your estimate

Pick the option closest to your business and we will tell you how long it takes and what to have ready.

Most small businesses finish in under 30 minutes. Sole traders are often done in 10.

Step 4: How do you calculate the carbon footprint?

The arithmetic is simple: activity multiplied by an emission factor. 10,000 kWh of electricity at the approximate 2026 UK grid factor of 0.13 kg CO2e per kWh is 1,300 kg, or 1.3 tCO2e. Do that for each source and add them up.

The skill is in being consistent. Follow the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, use the operational control boundary (everything you run day to day) and sort each source into a scope:

• Scope 1: fuel you burn, such as gas heating, company vehicles and generators, plus refrigerant top-ups for air conditioning.
• Scope 2: electricity you buy, reported both location-based and market-based.
• Scope 3: the indirect sources you include, such as flights, rail, staff mileage, commuting, homeworking, waste, water and purchases.

Other approximate 2026 factors you will meet are about 0.18 kg per kWh for natural gas and about 2.5 kg per litre of diesel. Take exact values from the government workbook and note the factor year. Our guide to Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions explains which source goes where.

Steps 5 and 6: How do you cover the social and governance sections?

These sections are mostly about writing down what you already do. For each practice, say honestly whether it is established, developing, not in place or not applicable.

Your people and community usually covers headcount and the gender balance of the team, leavers in the year, whether you pay the Real Living Wage or the National Living Wage, benefits and training, written risk assessments and a health and safety policy, incidents, a harassment policy, community activity and how you protect personal data, including whether you have paid the ICO data protection fee.

How you are run usually covers who leads the business and who owns ESG, whether you have a code of conduct and an environmental policy, how you manage ESG risks, any fines, certifications such as Cyber Essentials, ISO 14001 or B Corp, how you check suppliers, any modern slavery statement and how quickly you pay your suppliers.

Owners are often surprised by how much they already do. Flexible hours, a training budget and paying suppliers within 30 days all count. They simply have not been written down before.

Step 7: What commitments should you include?

Readers want to know where you are heading. A useful commitments section has:

• your baseline year and total footprint
• any carbon target, such as a percentage cut by a set year or net zero by 2050 or earlier
• three to five priorities for the next 12 months, each with a rough date
• the data gaps you plan to close before next year’s report

Keep targets believable. “Switch to a renewable tariff at our April renewal” carries more weight than a bold date with nothing behind it. Our guide to net zero for small businesses helps you choose one.

Step 8: How do you write each section?

Write the detailed sections first and the “at a glance” page last, once you know the headline numbers.

• At a glance: one page. Total tCO2e, the split by scope, emissions per employee, the largest source, and four or five facts such as “Real Living Wage paid” or “environmental policy adopted March 2026”.
• About you and this report: three short paragraphs on what you do, your size, where you work, the reporting period, the boundary and the standard followed.
• Your carbon footprint: a table by scope with totals, energy use in kWh and a sentence on what is included and excluded.
• Performance by source: a short paragraph per significant source, covering what drives it and where the savings are.
• Your people and community: the facts, in plain sentences. Let the numbers do the persuading.
• How you are run: the policies in place, who owns ESG and what is still developing.
• Commitments and next steps: your targets and priorities from step 7.
• Methodology and appendices: the method, the factor year, every calculation line and a data quality label for each source.

Keep the main body readable in ten minutes and make every claim specific enough to check. The CMA’s Green Claims Code is a good test: truthful, clear and backed by evidence. Our greenwashing entry covers the common pitfalls.

How honest should you be about estimates?

Completely, and it works in your favour. Label every source as measured (from a bill or meter), estimated from activity data (such as mileage), estimated from a benchmark (such as floor area) or a data gap. Reviewers expect a small business to estimate some things. What damages trust is an estimate dressed up as a measured fact.

Be just as clear about what the report is. A self-prepared report has not been independently assured, so do not describe it as verified.

Step 9: How do you sign it off and share it?

Ask a director or the owner to read it, confirm it gives a fair picture and date it. Then decide how to share it: as a PDF attached to questionnaires and tenders, a page on your website, or both. Keep your working files in one folder so next year starts where this one finished.

Then put a reminder in the diary for 12 months’ time. The second report is far quicker, and it is the one that shows progress, which is what most readers really want to see.

What is the quickest way to write an ESG report?

You can do every step above by hand, and this guide gives you what you need. If you would rather not spend the time finding factors and building spreadsheets, ESG Now does steps 3 to 7 for you. You answer plain-English questions in five phases (company profile, environmental, social, governance, and targets and plans), sections that do not apply are skipped, and your answers save as you go. The footprint uses the UK Government factors for your reporting period, every calculation line is shown in the appendix, and you get a shareable report in the structure above plus a private action plan.

A small office business typically finishes in 20 to 30 minutes, and a sole trader working from home in 10 to 15. Your first report is free, with no card needed. Start your report, or read more on our small businesses page.