ENVable shares sustainability roadmap at FSB's Survive to Thrive

"We're a green business." Great. Prove it.

On 15 September, ENVable headed to Guildford for the FSB Survive to Thrive event. We ran a session on communications, and we had a stand in the room too.

The session had one message: if you make an environmental claim, you need the evidence to back it up.

Why this matters now

The CMA's Green Claims Code has been around since September 2021. It sets out six principles.

Claims must be:

🌿 Truthful and accurate

🌿 Clear and unambiguous

🌿 Complete, with no hiding of important information

🌿 Fair and meaningful when comparing

🌿 Based on the full life cycle

🌿 Substantiated

That last one is where small businesses get caught out.

What has changed is the enforcement. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the CMA can now enforce consumer law directly, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover. The Code itself is guidance rather than legislation, but it shows how the CMA reads the law. It's worth taking seriously.

The SME problem

Most small businesses aren't trying to mislead anyone. They're proud of what they do, so they write "eco-friendly" on the website or "sustainable" on the packaging.

But broad, unexplained claims like these are exactly what the Code warns about. If you can't say what the claim refers to and show how you know, it's a risk.

What we covered

📍 Which words to be careful with, and why - Eco? Forget it. Green? Even worse.

📍 How to say what you actually know, and no more

📍 What counts as evidence, and how to keep it

The commercial point is simple. Evidence-backed claims protect you from regulatory risk. They also win trust, help in tenders and procurement, and make your marketing more credible than a competitor's vague green badge.

The stand

The best part was the conversations. We gave away bread and cakes courtesy of Love Haslemere Hate Waste's Community Fridge, and it was great to start a conversation on food surplus.

What struck us was how many owners already care about this. They just haven't had a practical way to find out where they stand. That's why we built ENVable: a self-serve way for SMEs to assess their sustainability and resilience, without the jargon, so they can build their own sustainability roadmap.

Thank you to the FSB for having us, and to everyone who came to the session or stopped by to say hello.

If we met in Guildford, we'd love to hear from you. And if we didn't, come and find us at envable.com.

Tause, co-founder of ENVable, with Jonny Lockett