Most business support and climate teams already sense that energy costs have become a more constant pressure on local SMEs than they used to be. New research from Giki confirms it. The report draws on two key sources: our analysis of the impact of energy price shocks across all major sectors of the UK economy, combined with Giki's library of 750+ decarbonisation actions for SMEs across 190+ sectors. Together, they point to a practical opening for local authorities: the fixes that help protect a business's margin are very often the same ones that cut its emissions.
What's changing for local businesses
Since the end of 2025, fuel prices have risen by more than 25%, driven by conflict in the Middle East and layered on top of pressures many SMEs are still absorbing from the war in Ukraine. Extreme weather events are now adding further short-term price spikes on top of that.
The shift this points to matters for anyone working in business support: energy volatility is moving from an occasional shock to a recurring feature of the operating environment. For the UK's 5.5 million SMEs, that changes the nature of the support that's useful — less about helping a business recover from one bad quarter, more about helping it build resilience for the next one.
Which sectors in your area are most exposed
Giki's report assessed all 24 major sectors across the UK economy against four factors: direct energy costs, indirect exposure through supply chains, ability to pass costs on to customers, and typical margins.
Exposure varies sharply:
- Most exposed: Farming, Food & Drink, and Transport & Logistics — sectors combining high energy use, thin margins, and limited ability to pass costs on to customers.
- Least exposed: Professional services, software, and financial services — lower direct energy costs and stronger pricing power give these sectors more headroom.
Read the full report for a full sector breakdown, direct and indirect impacts and what companies can do to protect themselves.
For local authorities, this is a useful lens for targeting outreach. If farming, food and drink, or logistics businesses make up a meaningful share of your local economy, they're likely to be feeling this most acutely right now — and may be the most receptive audience for support.
What businesses can actually do — at no cost, in many cases
The encouraging finding in the report is that exposure doesn't have to mean powerlessness. Of 120 actions identified as directly relevant to energy price protection, a significant share require no capital outlay at all, only changed habits and behaviour. A simple facility walk-around (sometimes called an "Energy Treasure Hunt") has helped some businesses cut energy use by more than 5% at zero cost.
The actions split into three practical categories, useful for thinking about a phased approach with the businesses you support:
- Quick wins: efficiency and behaviour change. The fastest to implement, lowest in cost, and most immediately visible on the bill. Many cost nothing.
- Future proofers: structural capital decisions. Longer-term investments such as deep retrofits, electrification of processes, or onsite renewable generation. These take more time and resource but deliver the most lasting change and the cost of acting is falling as the cost of inaction rises.
- Enablers: practical foundations. Often overlooked, but they're what make everything else possible: smart meters, staff training, basic energy policies. They rarely save money directly, but without them the bigger opportunities are harder to spot and harder to act on.
"Businesses don't have to choose between protecting their bottom line and protecting the planet — in the majority of cases, the same action does both, and a large number of them cost nothing to start."
— Jo Hand, Giki co-founder
Local authority funding is already making a difference
This isn't only a behaviour-change story. Local authority grant programmes are playing a direct role. Guy Watts, owner of Architectural Plants in Sussex, used funding from Horsham District Council to install solar panels, which let his business generate its own power and begin electrifying its garden design vehicles. The result: lower reliance on mains energy, reduced exposure to future price changes, and a lower fuel bill.
Just one example of the benefits for businesses in getting ahead. This is the pattern at the heart of the report: local authority support, paired with the right action plan, helps businesses build resilience and cut emissions at the same time.
A practical next step
Read the full report for further insights, including the breadth of impacts, both direct and indirect on local businesses, and a full sector impact breakdown.
If you'd like to talk through how this fits alongside an existing programme, we'd be glad to have that conversation too.
Source: Giki, 'How SMEs Can Protect Against Energy Price Shocks' (June 2026). Fuel price data based on UK Government weekly road fuel prices; gas prices based on natural gas wholesale prices from the start of the Iran conflict to end May 2026.