The devil is in the detail
ETOs, B Corps, Wildfires, M&S & Blackmarket
Good Business - Sustainability | Strategy | Impact
November 28, 2025
1. Trust issues
With talk of reductions to cash ISA limits, mansion taxes and changing EV subsidies, you’d be forgiven for missing the announcement in Wednesday’s budget of changes to capital gains tax rules as they apply to Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs). Good Business – as of 1st August 2025 – is owned by our employees and so this news didn’t pass us by.
Effective immediately, 50% of the gain made by owners of businesses when they sell shares to a newly established EOT will be subject to CGT, a significant change from the previous arrangements where the entire gain was tax free.
The current EOT arrangements were established in 2013 to support businesses wanting to preserve culture, jobs and independence. While the tax benefits made the sale of shares by a founder to an EOT (rather than to a competitor or a private equity firm) an attractive option financially, the main intention was always to provide an exit route for founders that allowed them to secure their legacy and permit employees to benefit directly from the future success of the business, while strict oversight from HMRC prevented inflated valuations.
EOTs were experiencing their moment in the sun. In 2024, the number of new EOTs rose by 25% from 2023 levels and estimates suggest that there are now over 1650 employee-owned businesses in the UK. This upturn is likely what prompted the government’s decision to cut CGT relief – Rachel Reeves indicated in her budget speech that the scheme now costs the UK government around £2bn in lost tax receipts, 20 times more than originally predicted. This decision is likely to put the brakes on the expansion, with the result that many founders will look at other exit routes.
We think this is a great shame. While the tax relief has of course played a part in the decision of many owners to sell to employees, the reality is that the employee ownership model brings many benefits, securing the long term futures of businesses around the country. While it may have been more successful than originally anticipated, with data suggesting that EOTs yield multiple long term financial and cultural benefits, the decision to remove the incentive to founders seems short-sighted.
Our decision, as we explained at the time, was driven by a desire to secure the future of the business in a way that aligned with our values. Working life ends up being a lot of our life, and we wanted current and future colleagues to experience working life that is fulfilling, impactful and connected. While that could have happened under a change of ownership, that wasn’t a given in the longer term, hence the decision to establish an employee-owned model. In an economy that is challenged by low productivity, precarious employment and uncertainty, employee ownership provides a way for employees to benefit from growth, a shared sense of purpose and a degree of autonomy that more traditional exit routes do not. Sacrificing that for a measure that will raise – at best – an estimated £900 million seems short-sighted in the extreme.
2. Walking the talk
B Lab’s latest research explores how B Corps are approaching circularity, climate action and environmental stewardship, highlighting where more structured sustainability practices are beginning to translate into tangible change.
The report suggests that what distinguishes B Corps is not just higher performance in isolated areas, but a more holistic approach that covers multiple dimensions of environmental impact as well as their contributions to broader systems change. B Corps consistently demonstrate stronger uptake of practices such as life cycle assessments, product take-back programmes, material optimisation for reuse and recyclability, and source and toxicity reduction. The research also shows that companies that implement a wider range of interconnected practices achieve stronger outcomes in emissions reduction and resource efficiency than those relying on more fragmented efforts, and goes so far as to suggest that if all companies adopted these practices at the rate that B Corps are doing, we’d reduce global temperatures by 0.5 degrees by 2100.
This is another proof point that sustainability performance improves when it is embedded across operations, procurement, product design and governance, rather than treated as a standalone undertaking.
Having clear company-wide targets is another way of driving systematic change and the updated B Lab Standards V2.1 requires companies to set clear climate targets, define concrete emissions reduction actions and demonstrate progress aligned with 1.5°C pathways. While only 14% of B Corps currently have science-based targets in place, they remain 2.5 times more likely than ordinary businesses to have adopted them, so this is a positive step forward.
And it’s one we’re pleased to say we’ve taken at Good Business. Our near-term science-based target has now been officially validated by the Science Based Targets initiative under the SME pathway. We have committed to maintaining zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions through 2030 and to reducing Scope 3 emissions from a 2024 baseline.
The report shows that B Corps are helping raise the bar for environmental responsibility, but they cannot drive systemic change on their own. The direction is promising, yet there is still a long way to go to turn momentum into impact at scale.
3. Wildfires wake-up call
2025 has been the UK’s worst year on record for wildfires. According to the Global Wildfire Information System, more than 47,000 hectares of UK land have been scorched, the largest area since monitoring began in 2012. Extreme heat and prolonged dry spells are turning moorlands and heathlands into tinderboxes, and this is no longer a rare event.
We explored these climate change impacts in Aviva’s Building Future Communities report, which looked at how climate change could reshape the UK over the next 20–30 years. It warned that by 2050, maximum annual temperatures in parts of the UK could rise by up to 3.5°C in some areas (compared to 1981-2010 standard normal), making heatwaves and wildfires far more frequent. The same report highlighted flooding and subsidence as parallel risks, all of which will put pressure on emergency services and infrastructure.
Right now, that pressure is already showing. The Guardian’s article highlights how underprepared UK Fire services are to adapt to this new reality, with Greater Manchester fire services needed to tackle blazes in Devon. This also increases the personal risk faced by firefighters who are equipped and trained for house fires, not vast moorland infernos. Critically, these same services are required for storm and flood recovery. The Fire Brigades Union has now written to the government demanding urgent investment in resources and training, warning that climate change is stretching services to breaking point
The idea that climate change is a distant problem is hard to shake. But this year’s wildfires are a wake-up call: resilience planning must go beyond roads and buildings – it must include the critical services and people that keep communities safe.
4. Sparking decarbonisation
sationFor many businesses, the biggest decarbonisation challenge isn’t in their own operations. It’s in their supply chain. For M&S, that accounts for 95% of its total footprint. If net zero by 2040 is the goal, engaging suppliers is essential.
That’s why M&S has launched RE:Spark, a programme developed with Schneider Electric to make renewable electricity adoption easier for suppliers. Switching to clean power remains one of the fastest and most effective ways to cut emissions, but for many suppliers, cost and complexity are big barriers.
RE:Spark tackles this head-on. A new digital hub will allow suppliers to share energy and emissions data and access practical resources. Advice and support is available as they work through options including installing solar panels, choosing green tariffs, and using mechanisms to purchase and claim the use of renewable electricity: Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). To make PPAs viable for smaller suppliers, RE:Spark will allow suppliers to aggregate demand, giving them the scale to secure better deals. M&S RE:Spark will initiate regional collaborations in Vietnam, Turkey, India, China and Bangladesh.
This is a smart move. Over the next few years, expect RE:Spark to expand and deepen its support past its high-impact regions. The programme is a practical illustration of how large businesses can engage suppliers to help decarbonise – and if others follow suit, it could create cascading impacts across industry.
5. Refill, don't replace
How often do you think about plastic waste from your bathroom? Probably not often but you should. UK households use over 14 billion plastic bottles every year. Adding a recycling bin to your bathroom is a surprisingly effective behaviour change hack – but it’s obviously better to avoid the waste in the first place.
Blackmarket offers an easy solution to one waste source: a refillable powder handwash. Instead of buying new plastic bottles, you keep one dispenser and refill it with powdered handwash sachets. Add water, shake, and you’re done.
What makes this better than refill pouches that are already available? Refill pouches use less plastic than bottles, but they’re made from multi-layer plastic films that are very hard to recycle. Most need to be sent back to the manufacturer or a specialist recycler, which rarely happens, so pouches still end up in landfills or are burned.
Blackmarket’s handwash powder comes in a sachet that dissolves in warm water and becomes part of the soap. It doesn’t break down into microplastics; it biodegrades into non-toxic products. The box that holds the handwash refills is made of 100% post-consumer recycled material and can be recycled with your cardboard along with the outer shipping box. Their glass bottle is made in the UK, with 45% recycled material. It’s meant to be reused for as long as possible and is infinitely recyclable.
Another important advantage comes through weight. The handwash refill ships in the form of a concentrated powder, so it weighs 95% less than premixed liquid soaps. Instead of transporting heavy bottles of liquid soap around the world, they only send the essential ingredient, and you add water at home. This simple innovation dramatically reduces carbon emissions associated with transportation
Small changes like this matter. If more people switched, we’d save millions of bottles and cut emissions. It’s a simple step with a big impact.
