The Opportunity

Building a Sustainable Baseline and Adapting to Evolving Regulations

For purpose-led financial services and specialist lending firms, embedding environmental responsibility into corporate operations is essential for long-term resilience and stakeholder trust. Evolution Money recognised early on that establishing a clear sustainability strategy was key to understanding their environmental footprint and driving meaningful progress.

To turn their sustainability intent into structured, measurable action, Evolution Money initially partnered with Green Business to calculate their carbon footprint, develop a practical environmental action plan, and achieve Green Business Certification. This was a key component of their subsequent, successful B Corp application. As the business grew and regulatory expectations evolved, this trusted ongoing partnership naturally expanded to tackle more complex compliance obligations, including mandatory Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR).

The Commercial Value

"Our ongoing relationship with Green Business has been invaluable. They initially helped us build our environmental action plan and achieve certification, but as our business grew, SECR reporting came onto our radar, something completely new to us that felt quite daunting.

Tim and the team stepped in, took away all the guesswork, and handled the SECR process seamlessly. Having an expert partner navigate that transition with us has been a huge benefit."

- Zoe Buckley, ESG Co-ordinator, Evolution Money

The Challenge

Moving from Foundational Environmental Planning to Technical Regulatory Reporting

While Evolution Money had already successfully embedded sustainable practices and established a certified carbon baseline, the introduction of mandatory frameworks like SECR presented a fresh technical challenge.

SECR requires organisations to disclose detailed energy consumption and greenhouse gas metrics. Without an in-house carbon accounting team, navigating these additional requirements alongside day-to-day operations risked creating significant administrative complexity. Evolution Money needed their trusted technical partner to seamlessly integrate SECR reporting into their existing environmental framework without disrupting business momentum.

The Approach

A Multi-Stage Partnership: From Actionable Planning to SECR Integration

Green Business supported Evolution Money across every stage of their sustainability journey, providing hands-on guidance as their requirements expanded:

• Foundational Carbon Footprinting: We calculated Evolution Money's operational carbon footprint, establishing a clear and reliable emissions baseline.
• Practical Environmental Action Planning: We co-created a tailored action plan setting out realistic, high-impact steps to drive down resource use and operational emissions.
• Green Business Certification: We independently verified their environmental credentials, awarding Green Business Certification to validate their commitment to sustainable operations.
• B Corp Certification: Their footprint and action plan formed a key component of their successful B Corp application.
• Seamless SECR Compliance: As reporting requirements expanded, we managed the end-to-end SECR compliance process, collecting energy and fuel data, translating complex metrics, and delivering fully framework-compliant reporting.

The Impact

Ongoing Environmental Progress and Stress-Free Regulatory Compliance

By building on a strong foundation of carbon footprinting and action planning, Evolution Money turned what could have been a stressful regulatory obligation into a natural extension of their sustainability strategy.

• Verified Green Credentials: Earned Green Business Certification, giving clients, partners, and stakeholders absolute confidence in Evolution Money's environmental integrity.
• Structured Long-Term Strategy: Implemented a clear environmental action plan that provides the leadership team with full visibility over planned action and future reduction targets.
• B Corp Certification: Providing a clear signal to stakeholders of Evolution Money's commitment to high standards of social and environmental performance.
• 100% SECR Compliance: Flawlessly fulfilled mandatory SECR reporting obligations, eliminating internal administrative burden and compliance anxiety.

The Partnership

What It's Like to Work with Green Business

"Working with Green Business over the long term has made a massive difference to our business.

Carbon footprinting and environmental planning felt accessible from the start, but when SECR reporting came along, having the Green Business team there to guide us was incredible. Knowing we can just reach out whenever complex requirements arise gives us total peace of mind.

Green Business don't feel like traditional consultants, instead we see them as an extension of our ESG team as they are always there to help, respond quickly, and of course have that context of who and what our business is which makes things so much easier!"

- Zoe Buckley, ESG Co-ordinator, Evolution Money