Local business Combe Garden is helping families reduce the carbon footprint of the food they eat, just one of the many small businesses helping to drive progress in the UK’s journey to Net Zero.

Small businesses are crucial in the journey to achieving Net Zero goals, providing an opportunity to implement changes and innovation from the ground up.

Combe Garden serves as inspiration for existing or aspiring business owners, of any age and at any stage of their sustainability journey.

Alice Vandeleur-Boorer spent her childhood watching her mum growing small amounts of food in their garden and has loved it ever since. After a brief stint as a self-employed artist and a full-time stay-at-home mum, she decided to sow the seeds of her own market garden.

Combe Garden, based on her parents’ small holding in North Devon, offers families the opportunity to enjoy sustainable and home-grown vegetable boxes from a local garden, reducing the carbon footprint of the food they eat. Eating a more sustainable diet is critical to the country’s journey to Net Zero.

Alice obtained a loan of £1,200 from the Start Up Loans programme to purchase seeds, compost, fencing and tools to set up the market garden. Now aged 36, she grows a selection of salad, the main attraction for customers, as well as seasonal vegetables including carrots, kale, tomatoes, squash and onions. She currently sells the produce to families in Woolacombe and Ilfracombe as personalised vegetable boxes.

Alice Vandeleur-Boorer, founder of Combe Garden, said:

“Sustainability was a key driver for me when setting up my business. I chose to use compostable packaging for my salad leaves and paper packaging for the vegetables to reduce waste.

“Whilst I had initially started my business delivering vegetable boxes door to door, due to the emissions that created I changed to a market stand and delivered boxes to parents outside the school gate who were already there to pick up their children.

“For businesses starting out I would suggest cutting down complicated processes to make them as simple as possible, and that usually makes it more sustainable. For example, a lot of items don’t need to be packaged at all.”

Richard Bearman, Managing Director, Small Business Lending at the British Business Bank said:

“Alice has now established a thriving, eco-conscious business, demonstrating the transformative impact of the Start Up Loans programme. We hope her story and what she is doing with her business serves as an inspiration to other small business owners.”

Start Up Loans is committed to funding groups in society who would otherwise struggle to access finance, including those who are economically inactive, young and out of education, or those post-retirement.

The number of economically inactive people has been on the rise across the UK. Using a Start Up Loan is a viable alternative to employment, and since its inception the programme has provided 412 loans worth over £3.5m in the South West to people who are economically inactive or unemployed.

The focus on sustainability comes as world leaders prepare to gather for the COP 29 UN Climate Change Conference next week in Baku, Azerbaijan, which offers an important opportunity for international collaboration on climate change.

Smaller businesses can find a wealth of independent and impartial information to support their transition to net zero via the British Business Bank’s Finance Hub.

The British Business Bank’s 2021 Smaller Businesses and the Transition to Net Zero Report found that smaller businesses account for around half of UK business greenhouse gas emissions.