Australia’s transition to a low-carbon economy presents both significant opportunities and complex challenges for SMEs. While many businesses recognise the commercial importance of decarbonisation, they often face uncertainty about where to begin, how to prioritise investment and what support they require to remain competitive.
The client sought an independent engagement process that would validate existing research, identify practical barriers experienced by businesses and generate new ideas that could inform future government policy. The project required meaningful engagement with business owners, industry experts and sustainability practitioners across multiple sectors, ensuring recommendations reflected real-world experience rather than theory alone.
Trestle Digital designed and delivered a structured industry engagement program that combined facilitated roundtables, collaborative workshops and evidence-based analysis. The engagement built upon previous business decarbonisation initiatives while encouraging participants to explore practical opportunities, barriers and policy options for accelerating Australia’s transition to Net Zero.
The workshops brought together business leaders, sustainability specialists, industry representatives and government stakeholders to validate existing findings, generate new ideas and identify practical recommendations. Trestle analysed the discussions, synthesised recurring themes and produced a comprehensive report highlighting opportunities across communication, capability development, financial incentives, government procurement, practical tools and workforce skills.
The engagement was designed not only to collect feedback, but to create a collaborative environment where government and industry could jointly explore practical approaches to supporting business decarbonisation.
The project delivered a comprehensive set of evidence-based recommendations informed directly by Australian businesses and industry experts.
The findings provided the client with practical insights into the barriers facing SMEs, together with recommendations to strengthen communication, improve access to skills and training, develop practical implementation tools and better align government policy with industry needs. The report also reinforced the importance of collaboration between government, industry and education providers in building Australia’s capability to transition towards a low-carbon economy.
By combining structured stakeholder engagement with strategic analysis, Trestle Digital helped create a practical evidence base to support future policy development while strengthening dialogue between government and Australian industry.
