Learning more about the respondents in the Small Business Energy Report
This survey, brought to you by Constellation in conjunction with Small Business Trends, is focused exclusively on America's 30 million small businesses and their energy attitudes and practices.
The overarching goal is to help small businesses increase profitability and grow their business by making environmental sustainability, energy usage and recycling a competitive advantage.
The survey was conducted online February 4-22, 2019, with a total of 604 worldwide respondents. This report will focus on U.S. respondents only. Future surveys will track certain responses to reflect changes in attitude and broad sentiment.
1. What type of small business do you operate?
The survey respondents mostly come from traditional Main Street businesses that represent a variety of industries. Retail/ecommerce, professional services and consumer services were the top three responses.
Interestingly, nearly 20% of respondents selected “other” and specified a variety of businesses that included everything from the arts to music to selling pallets to farming.
2. How many business locations do you have?
While most respondents operate their businesses from a single location, nearly 16% have between two and 10 business locations. About 4.5% have more than 11 locations.
3. Do you operate your business from home?
About two-thirds of respondents operate their business from home. The remainder of respondents have at least one location.
This number is roughly in line with small business firmographics from the SBA. According to the SBA, more than 80% of small businesses in the United States are single-person businesses, meaning that they have no employees.
The SBA calls them nonemployer businesses and such businesses are often operated out of the owner’s home.
Want to know more? See the Small Business Survey Results!
Want to see the respondents answers for how they use energy? Visit our SMB survey results page for a breakdown of business strategies and energy usage.
