FOI Ref: FOI/2023/4760
You asked
I have seen on the website that the ONS currently provide national figures for businesses that reported plans to improve their environmental footprint.
Specifically looking at the data from section 3 of this article: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/ukbusinessactiononnetzeroandhistoricalenergyuse/2021-11-08 , I'd like to request if I could have this data broken down by city/region.
Could you provide these findings broken down by city/region, where responding employers are based for:
- The most common action that businesses have taken to reduce their emissions
- Businesses that have reported they are not implementing any actions to reduce their emissions
- Businesses not currently taking action in the next 12 months
- Businesses across all industries that reported taking at least one action to reduce emissions in early October 2021
- Businesses not currently taking action to reduce emissions that reported there is "nothing to prevent them from doing so"
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
While we do not currently hold the data to provide a breakdown at city level, we do have some country and regional level breakdowns for the information requested.
We currently publish unweighted subnational estimates at International Territorial Level 1 (ITL1, which is Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the nine regions in England) every time the referenced questions appear in Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS). It is important to understand that these regional data at ITL1 are unweighted, therefore the following caveat applies:
Unweighted regional Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) estimates are produced by taking the survey return from each reporting unit and then applying this to the reporting unit's local sites. If a business has a site or several sites (also known as local units) within a country, then this business is defined as having a presence there. The business is then allocated once within each region (regardless of the number of sites) and the information provided by the reporting unit as a whole is copied and used within each country.
The UK-wide data is weighted by count in our releases. Further information on weighting can be found in our Quality and Methodology Information publication.
All available breakdowns for BICS survey question responses are available via the ONS website: Business insights and impact on the UK economy.
In relation to your specific questions:
1. "The most common action that businesses have taken to reduce their emissions" and "Businesses that have reported they are not implementing any actions to reduce emissions".
These questions were asked in the survey collected from 28 November to 11 December 2022. Regional breakdowns are available in table 67 ('Net Zero'), in the wave 71 edition of the dataset published on 15 December 2022. Business insights and impact on the UK economy.
2. "Businesses not currently taking action in the next 12 months"
This is no longer included as a question in the BICS survey. It was last asked during early 2022 (24 January to 6 February 2022). Results can be found in table 98 ('Net Zero'), in the wave 49 edition of the dataset published 10 February 2022 Business insights and impact on the UK economy.
3. "Businesses across all industries that reported taking at least 1 action to reduce emissions"
We regularly ask businesses about the actions they are taking to reduce emissions. The wave 71 edition of the BICS dataset shows the latest geographic breakdowns for response options. While we do not specifically ask businesses if they are taking at least one action, this can be worked out from the proportion of businesses reporting taking no action. Business insights and impact on the UK economy.
4. "Businesses not currently taking action to reduce emissions that reported there is 'nothing to prevent them from doing so'".
This question was asked from 4 to 17 October 2021. The results can be found in table 87 ('Carbon Emissions'), in the wave 41 edition of the dataset published 21 October 2021 Business insights and impact on the UK economy