Enhancing your business’s sustainability can lead to real and positive outcomes for your business such as lower operating costs, winning government procurement contracts, attracting new investments or meeting the expectations of customers – all of which will ultimately lead to growing profitability and a thriving business.

Benefits of the ecoBiz program:

• Access your data 24/7- including your business maturity and emissions
• Build your business capability in business sustainability maturity
• Continue to learn with our tools and resources as well as  grow your business maturity
• Increase business readiness through supply chains, align with reporting expectations and make more informed decisions about your carbon emissions and climate outcomes
• Become an ecoBiz Star Partner

Register for the ecoBiz program here. It takes two minutes to register by completing a series of questions and creating your login and password. Once you’ve created your account, take a tour of the platform and dashboards.

The ecoBiz program is completely free. The recommendations you’ll be provided as part of your action plan will range from low to no cost but some may require more of an investment – but how much it costs and when you decide to spend that money is entirely up to you.

No – the program is open to all Queensland businesses with up to 199 FTEs. 

The ecoBiz program has been running in Queensland for more than 10 years. Right now, around 800 businesses are participating, from small cafes and offices through to manufacturing and processing facilities. 

The ecoBiz program provides one on one support through:

• A free site visit and coaching session with an expert ecoBiz consultant who will help identify areas you can improve around your business.
• Carbon meeting to support you in understanding data needed to complete the carbon calculator and interpret the results.
• Also our ecoBiz team members are available by phone or email if you have any queries. Phone 1300 731 988 or email [email protected]

To be eligible to become a Star Partner a business must show a 10% reduction in at least one of the following three categories: energy, water or waste across a 12-month period.

If this is not applicable for the business, then the ecoBiz Sustainability Coach can recommend Star Partner status on a qualitative basis.

A carbon snapshot is an approximation of carbon emissions related to your energy, water and waste data you provided as part of your ecoBiz partnership assessment. This data is then calculated using the ecoBiz carbon tool to gather your carbon snapshot.

It is useful as a starting point to your carbon emissions measurement journey and can help you make better informed decisions in relation to your carbon emissions. It is different from a comprehensive carbon footprint.

Enter your FTE (full-time employee) figures and total revenue. Once you’ve input the data, you’ll receive industry average emission data for your industry in your emissions dashboard for comparison. This is a beginner tool that introduces business to a basic carbon footprint for their business. However this tool cannot be used to compare year on year results or to demonstrate sustainability progress.

Complete the multiple-choice question quiz to test your knowledge of your business carbon emissions and sustainable operations. Once completed you’ll be provided with a curated learning pathway based on your carbon knowledge.

As your knowledge grows, you’ll gain access to more advanced tools including the Carbon Calculator, a coaching session with a carbon coach and completing a decarbonisation report.

The Carbon Calculator will be unlocked once your knowledge score reaches developing or above.  You will be prompted to provide data about your scope 1 and 2 emissions into the calculator. Once complete your emissions report will appear in your emissions dashboard. You can use the report to develop actions to reduce your emissions and create your decarbonisation plan (also available from your emissions dashboard).

If you need support to identify the data required for the carbon calculator or interpret your results you can book a meeting with a carbon coach.

A carbon snapshot is an approximation of carbon emissions related to your energy, water and waste data you provided as part of your ecoBiz partnership assessment. This data is then calculated using the ecoBiz carbon tool to gather your carbon snapshot.

It is useful as a starting point to your carbon emissions measurement journey and can help you make better informed decisions in relation to your carbon emissions. It is different from a comprehensive carbon footprint.

To get your carbon snapshot, you must:

Step 1: Register for the ecoBiz program

Step 2: You will be requested to provide your energy, water and waste bills covering one year period

Step 3: Undertake a free coaching session to identify ways to reduce your energy, water and waste bills

Step 4: One year after your coaching session, you will be requested to provide another set of energy, water and waste bills covering a new one-year period for comparison.

Step 5: This will be used to conduct a Partnership Assessment in which you will receive insights on your progress towards reducing your bills as well as your carbon snapshot and progress in reducing your emissions.

The carbon tool provides carbon emission estimates in relation to energy, water and waste to allow a business to make more informed decisions to reduce their emissions as well as track their progress in those specific resources. These figures are provided in your partnership assessment report and will allow you to identify carbon hotspots, i.e., areas that contribute the most to your carbon emissions.

This can be very useful for your business to prioritise strategies that will have the most impact to reduce your emissions.

At this stage, your carbon snapshot will only be calculated as part of your Partnership assessment. This assessment is carried out one year after your initial coaching session and requires you to provide your billing data covering the baseline year (the calendar or financial year prior to the coaching session) and data covering the assessment year (the calendar or financial year following the initial coaching session).  

Not necessarily, if you have decreased your energy, water and waste use regardless of your productivity, then you will most likely have reduced your emissions compared to your baseline (carbon net reduction). However, as Star Partnership assessments are conducted on the basis of your energy, water, and waste intensity (i.e., amount of these resources per business output, measured by productivity unit), a Star Partnership doesn’t necessarily translate into a net carbon reduction. However, if you have achieved your Star Partnership in any of energy, water or waste, you will have avoided emissions related to each of the resource you achieved Star Partnership for compared to your baseline.  

There are many reasons why this could be the case. Here are a few:

• Star Partnership compares your resource usage per business output compared to your baseline. You may have managed to reduce your resource usage compared to that baseline but not compared to your last assessment.
• While you have increased your efficiency per business output, your total emissions may have increased.
• Your previous assessment may have only included one type of resource (e.g. electricity), while you have now opted to also track other resources this year (e.g. fuel usage as well as waste).
• You may have reduced your usage in one of the resources but not the others. If the emissions reduction associated with that resource was no enough to compensate for emissions increases in the other resources your overall emissions would have increased.

There are many reasons why this could be the case. Here are a few examples:

• You may have reduced your usage in one of the resources but not the others. If the emissions reduction associated with that resource was not enough to compensate for emissions increases in the other resources, your overall emissions would have increased.
• Your previous assessment may have only included one type of resource (e.g. electricity), while you have now opted to also track other resources this year (e.g. fuel usage as well as waste). So by tracking your other resources, you are now also tracking emissions related to those resources.

Climate change presents a range of risks and opportunities for businesses, no matter where in Queensland you’re based.

It’s already affecting the cost of doing business, with rising insurance costs. Other impacts include physical damage to infrastructure caused by more extreme and frequent extreme weather events, supply chain disruptions, increasing regulation and changing customer preferences. Opportunities also exist for businesses to establish a competitive advantage.

By planning now, businesses can reduce vulnerability, optimise resource use and enhance operational efficiency. Resilient businesses are better positioned to thrive amidst uncertainty, gaining a competitive edge over less prepared competitors.

Extreme weather continues to disrupt many Queensland businesses.

The Australian Government’s ‘State of the Climate’ report highlights evidence that both Australia’s climate and the oceans surrounding Australia have warmed since national records began in 1910. No matter where in Queensland you’re based, climate change is already affecting the cost of doing business with more frequent and extreme weather events and rising insurance costs. By planning for and adapting to climate risks now, you can ensure your business remains viable in a rapidly changing environment.

The first step is understanding what risks and opportunities climate change may present for your business. Then, you can decide on what actions you need to take. For example, does where you are located make you at greater risk of supply chain disruptions if roads are cut off by more regular flooding? Perhaps you need to plan for contingencies – like alternative routes or warehousing arrangements.

ecoBiz, our free sustainability program, has a range of tools and resources to help small and medium businesses (SMEs) understand, assess and plan for these impacts.

Climate risk maturity refers to the extent to which a business has developed and implemented policies and procedures to adapt to climate change risks and opportunities. ecoBiz’s climate risk maturity tool helps businesses assess how ready they are. From there, they can access a range of tools and resources to help them build their understanding of climate risks and opportunities and create an action plan.

The tool draws on rigorous climate science from Queensland’s Regional Climate Change Impact Summaries. Based on the region you select; the tool then pre-populates the key climate risks and prompts you to consider both the opportunities and impacts these risks pose to your business.

The Regional Climate Change Impact Summaries provide snapshots of projected climate changes and potential impacts across Queensland’s regional planning areas. They summarise regional climate change projections for a subset of climate variables including temperatures, hot days, rainfall, evapotranspiration (the process of water moving from land to the atmosphere) and consecutive dry days, for the years 2050 and 2090, and for three emissions scenarios described by Shared Socio-economic Pathways.

Yes, ecoBiz offers a ‘Climate risk and adaptation’ module that includes a range of tools and resources to help you prepare your business for a changing climate. The module includes an assessment tool to help you identify risks and opportunities, an action plan builder and a host of learning articles to help you build your understanding.

This tool is designed to help small to medium businesses evaluate how prepared their readiness and progress in addressing climate-related risks and opportunities.

The assessment helps small to medium businesses identify and assess the impacts of climate risks and opportunities on their business. This allows you to make more informed decisions, helping to build resilience and ensure the ongoing competitiveness of your business. Once you’ve completed the assessment, our action plan builder tool

The action plan builder helps small to medium businesses create a practical action plan in response to climate risks and opportunities. It features pre-populated ideas based on your maturity assessment and is trackable so you can monitor your progress.

The climate risk and adaptation resources are free for small and medium-sized Queensland businesses that are registered with our ecoBiz program. You can register for ecobiz here

The climate risk and adaptation resources are free for small and medium-sized Queensland businesses that are registered with our ecoBiz program.

You can register for ecoBiz here.

If you’re registered with ecoBiz, just login to the ecoBiz digital platform. Navigate to the ‘Welcome’ screen and click on ‘Unlock climate risk and adaptation’ module.

If you’re not already signed up to ecoBiz, you can register here. It’s free for Queensland businesses with less than 200 full-time employees.