Carbon price and small business

The Australian Government has announced a plan to introduce a carbon price from 1 July 2012.

The carbon price will directly affect around 500 of the biggest polluters in Australia. It will provide an incentive for big polluters to reduce the impact they have on the environment by investing in clean energy technologies or finding more efficient ways of operating.

Under this initiative, small businesses will not be required to pay a carbon price. However, the Australian Government has announced that there may be some indirect impacts on small businesses, such as higher electricity bills, as a result of bigger businesses passing on the costs of the carbon price.

Information for small business

The Australian Government operates the Small Business Support Line to help small business owners find information and services they can use to understand the carbon price and reduce their impact on the environment.

Contact the Small Business Support Line on:

Phone: 1800 777 275
Monday-Friday, 8am-8pm AEDST
Email: SBSL@innovation.gov.au

Information about the impact of the carbon price on small businesses and grants and programs to help small businesses reduce their impact on the environment is also available via the Australian Government's grant finder.

Carbon Outlook

Carbon Outlook was a study of the Australian Government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and the potential impacts and opportunities for Queensland small and medium businesses. Carbon Outlook studied the carbon use of 50 businesses from 7 sectors - manufacturing, food processing, tourism, retail, building and construction, transport and aviation.

The Carbon Outlook study is still relevant to small and medium sized businesses as the Australian Government's carbon price - commencing 1 July 2012 - is similar to the CPRS.

For more information about Carbon Outlook, download the executive summary and the full report (PDF, 1.5MB).