Sustainability Isn't Just a Big-Company Problem Anymore
Author: Michael Staunton - September 2026
If you run a small or medium business in Ireland, you'd be forgiven for thinking the recent headlines about EU “simplification” mean sustainability has become someone else's problem.
In March 2026, the Omnibus I Directive came into force, substantially narrowing who is subject to mandatory sustainability reporting under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and changing the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). The revised CSRD scope is now focused on companies with more than 1,000 employees and net turnover above €450 million.
For a business with, say, twelve people and a turnover well south of €450 million, it's tempting to file sustainability under “not my problem” and move on.
I'd subtly push back on that. Not because the compliance burden was ever really aimed at you, it wasn't, but because the reasons to take sustainability seriously were never mainly about compliance in the first place.
They're commercial.
And recent research into how Irish SMEs are approaching sustainability makes that case more clearly than any directive does.
The compliance pressure hasn't disappeared, it's just moved
Before getting to the commercial argument, it's worth being straight about what the Omnibus changes actually do and don't do.
They genuinely lift the direct CSRD reporting obligation from the vast majority of Irish SMEs. That relief is real. But being outside the scope of CSRD isn't the same as being outside the sustainability conversation.
Large companies still subject to sustainability reporting, along with other organisations with supply-chain, financing or sustainability commitments, may still need information from the businesses they buy from. The revised rules also introduce a value-chain protection intended to limit disproportionate information requests from smaller businesses and encourage use of the voluntary SME reporting standard.
In practice, it can still play out in a fairly ordinary way: a manufacturer or contract packer receives a supplier questionnaire from a larger customer asking for energy data, waste figures, emissions information or details of its environmental practices.
The business hasn't necessarily done anything wrong. Its customer may simply have sustainability information requirements further up its own value chain, and some of those requests will continue to reach smaller suppliers.
The European Commission has adopted a voluntary sustainability reporting standard for smaller companies. The standard is intended to give smaller businesses a proportionate way to structure sustainability information and respond to requests from larger companies and financial institutions.
That is exactly the kind of gap TrailZero is intended to help SMEs address; organising the information they already have and turning it into a structured, credible response rather than assembling something from scratch every time a request arrives.
The commercial case was always the stronger one
Here's what I find more persuasive than any directive: Irish SMEs themselves are increasingly treating sustainability as a business issue.
The Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment's second wave of SME Sustainability Research, published in February 2026, found that 85% of businesses surveyed said sustainability was important to their business on a day-to-day basis. The most common motivations included making a positive difference (35%) and saving money (34%), while the most common areas of action were waste reduction, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
That is significant because it puts sustainability firmly in an operational context.
It isn't necessarily about producing a glossy sustainability report. For many SMEs, it starts with much more practical questions:
Where are we using too much energy?
Where are we creating unnecessary waste?
What is our carbon footprint?
What are our customers asking us for?
And what changes would actually make commercial sense?
Recent business research points in the same direction. PTSB's 2026 research found that 72% of businesses identified sustainability as a top commercial growth opportunity, up substantially from the previous year.
The commercial case therefore isn't simply about demonstrating that a business is “green”. It's about understanding where sustainability intersects with cost, customers, supply chains, finance and competitiveness.
The catch is that doing something and being able to demonstrate it are two different things
An SME can be operating efficiently, reducing waste or investing in energy efficiency without having the information organised to demonstrate any of it.
That's where the problem often starts.
You can't credibly answer a customer's sustainability questionnaire, support the sustainability section of a tender, or have a meaningful conversation about green finance based on a hunch. You need a documented baseline and a clear picture of where your energy, emissions, waste and other relevant impacts are coming from.
That doesn't mean every SME needs a sophisticated reporting system.
It means having enough reliable information to understand where the business stands and support the claims it makes.
The measurement step isn't glamorous, but it is the thing almost everything else depends on.
There's also a differentiation angle that's easy to underrate
Most SME sectors in Ireland are competitive; construction subcontractors, hospitality operators, professional services firms, food producers and manufacturers are all competing for customers and contracts.
Being able to answer sustainability questions credibly, with evidence rather than vague claims, can therefore become a practical point of difference.
It's not about claiming to be green. It's about being able to say something specific and true when a customer, lender or prospective business partner asks what your company is doing.
That only works if you've actually measured and organised the relevant information first.
The barriers are real, and worth naming honestly
None of this is easy, and I don't think it's useful to pretend otherwise.
The 2026 Department of Enterprise research found that upfront investment costs remained the main barrier identified by businesses, although that barrier had fallen compared with the previous survey. At the same time, most businesses were already taking practical steps in areas such as waste reduction and energy efficiency.
That tells us something useful.
The challenge isn't necessarily that Irish SMEs don't care about sustainability. It's often about knowing where to start, what is worth doing first, and how much information is actually needed.
So if cost and lack of know-how are the real constraints, the sensible move isn't a grand sustainability strategy with a glossy cover page.
It's starting with the changes that make commercial sense; often energy and resource efficiency first, then waste, carbon, supply-chain requirements or whatever is creating the most immediate pressure, and building from there.
Where TrailZero fits
There is also support available for SMEs willing to take action.
Enterprise Ireland's Climate Action Voucher provides up to €1,800 to help eligible businesses engage an independent advisor or trainer on sustainability. Local Enterprise Offices also operate regional supports and programmes, while the Government's Climate Toolkit 4 Business provides a free starting point for businesses looking to understand their carbon footprint and identify practical actions.
The Climate Toolkit is particularly useful because it starts with information many businesses already have; energy bills, waste data, travel and freight information, and uses that to produce an estimated carbon footprint and tailored action plan.
But knowing that these supports exist and turning them into a well-scoped piece of work are different things.
That's one of the reasons green finance and tender support form part of TrailZero's offering: helping a business identify the information it actually needs, organise the evidence and prepare a practical response rather than leaving a potentially useful opportunity untouched because the process feels too complicated.
In practice, start with what you already have
Most sustainability work doesn't need to begin with a strategy document.
It can begin with the information already sitting inside the business:
electricity and fuel records
waste information
packaging data
supplier documentation
purchasing records
existing policies and procedures
customer sustainability questionnaires
From there, a business can establish a baseline and identify the areas where action is most worthwhile.
That baseline might lead to a carbon footprint assessment. It might identify energy or waste savings. It might reveal that a customer is asking for information the business already has but hasn't organised. Or it might show that VSME-aligned reporting would provide a useful structure for responding to future requests.
None of it needs to happen at once. And none of it needs a strategy document before the first useful thing gets done.
The bigger picture
The Omnibus simplification is, in one sense good news, it takes a significant direct reporting burden away from businesses that were never really its intended target.
But it's worth resisting the temptation to read it as “sustainability was a regulatory fad that's now being walked back.”
The evidence doesn't support that.
Irish businesses continue to identify sustainability as important, with cost reduction, operational efficiency and commercial opportunity among the reasons for taking action. Customers, lenders and supply chains are also continuing to ask businesses questions about how they operate.
For most SMEs, the honest starting point isn't a sustainability strategy document.
It's a proper baseline, a short list of practical changes that make commercial sense, and a clear view of what support is available.
That's a far more manageable place to begin than the compliance conversation ever was.
And for many businesses, it's also where the real return sits.
If you'd like a straight read on where your business actually stands, what a baseline could show, what's worth acting on first, and what support might be available, that's exactly the conversation TrailZero exists to have.
