After the pound slumped to a record low against the dollar earlier this week, it continues to remain weak after the mini-budget and tax cuts announced late last week. Former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has accused the new Prime Minister of undercutting the central bank, attributing the partial budget for the dramatic shifts in the financial markets. The government plans to implement tax cuts has many fearing the Bank of England will be forced to raise interest rates even higher, as last week in an effort to calm inflation, rates were raised for the seventh time in a row to the highest they’ve been in 14 years. Even with the announced support package for businesses aimed at slashing energy bills in half, there are still fears that the weak pound will significantly increase the cost of importing goods from overseas, such as petrol and gas – resources vital to businesses across the nation.

Across the board, the energy crisis is already eating into a majority of businesses’ profit margins, with SMEs across the country facing an average bill increase of over 250% in the last year alone, according to Cornwall Insight. In addition, a report by the Federation of Small Business found that 53% of small businesses will stagnate, decline or fold in the next 12 months. This is even more concerning when you consider that 53% of SMEs in the UK are not doing anything to monitor their energy efficiency, and are likely spending far more than they may need to on energy costs. Britain’s leading sustainability experts, SaveMoneyCutCarbon, explain that shopping around and switching tariffs to reduce energy bills has become obsolete.

The British Chambers of Commerce project that less than half (43%) of UK firms are expecting profitability in the next 12 months, whilst 1-in-4 hospitality and leisure businesses fear closing this year due to the inability to afford energy costs, according to eEnergy. In the wake of this setback, a new study from SaveMoneyCutCarbon has found that over half (51%) of employers in the UK still don’t know where or how to start reducing their carbon emissions. This is supported by research from Ecologi, which found that 42% of SME owners in the UK believe that it’s important to be sustainable, but struggle because of a lack of guidance.