When B&Q launched its ambitious Net Zero Transition Plan, Senior Sustainability Manager, Sanita Garley, faced a classic retail challenge: how do you translate corporate carbon targets into everyday buying decisions?
To bridge this gap, we worked closely with B&Q to co-develop and deliver Carbon Literacy Training, and enrolled Sanita in our Train the Trainer programme. As a result, B&Q has upskilled more than 100 commercial colleagues, ensuring carbon decisions are no longer siloed within a specialist sustainability team.
This shift is already showing up in more confident supplier conversations, smarter product choices, and a stronger culture of shared carbon literacy across the business.
The challenge
Sustainability has always mattered to B&Q. They have a proud commitment to reducing the impact of its products, services and operations. The real challenge was translating that commitment into day-to-day commercial decision-making.
When B&Q rolled out its Net Zero Transition Plan, gaps in carbon understanding quickly surfaced. This was especially true across buying teams, who were making commercial decisions without a clear link to carbon impact. A fear of using the wrong terminology or saying the wrong thing caused buyers to shy away from sustainability conversations entirely. This presented a risk to the delivery of B&Q’s Net Zero Transition Plan, with key commercial decisions being made without a clear understanding of carbon impact.
What B&Q needed was a way to make carbon practical, relevant and actionable for busy commercial teams, without overwhelming them with irrelevant information.
The delivery
To help join the dots, B&Q invited Lighthouse Sustainability to launch a face-to-face Carbon Literacy pilot. In a corporate world of screen fatigue, deadlines and distractions, Sanita wanted teams away from their desks for a day so they had the space to grasp the science, evidence and commercial reality of climate action.
The pilot's success immediately opened the door to a long-term strategy for building internal expertise. Sanita and Samantha Dyer (Head of Sustainability) stepped into Lighthouse’s Train the Trainer programme, mastering the tools to confidently lead the sessions internally, tackle tough questions, and deliver Carbon Literacy in a way that felt credible and relevant to B&Q’s reality.
From there, we spent several months co-developing B&Q’s internal course. Sanita was integral, providing the insight and advocacy needed to connect with her colleagues. The real magic of this partnership wasn't just delivering training, but equipping B&Q to build lasting internal capability with Sanita as its passionate champion.
Impact
Commercial teams have transformed how they engage with the Net Zero Transition Plan. Conversations that were once challenging are now open, informed and highly productive. Buyers are increasingly confident in discussing climate targets and lower-carbon solutions with vendors, embedding carbon considerations into commercial decision-making and helping drive progress towards B&Q's Net Zero ambitions.
More than 100 colleagues have now been trained, with collective pledges already translating into tangible action. This increased Carbon Literacy is actively changing how the work shows up in practice.
Carbon has become part of the everyday conversation. With a shared understanding of key concepts such as Scopes 1, 2 and 3, colleagues are able to focus on collaborating, making informed decisions and driving meaningful progress towards B&Q's Net Zero goals.
The impact hasn't stopped at the HQ door. Colleagues are bringing these carbon insights home to their dinner tables, influencing everything from family travel choices to how they talk to their kids about the climate crisis.
Next steps
The next phase is about scale. B&Q is considering how to take the programme further, including wider participation across the organisation, potential online delivery to complement the face-to-face sessions, and the development of future internal Carbon Literacy Trainers. That would give the business more capacity to reach colleagues at pace, while keeping the training grounded in B&Q’s own context.
Most importantly, B&Q now has a model it can own and evolve. Carbon Literacy is no longer held within a small central team. More colleagues across the business can engage confidently in climate conversations, connect carbon to their role, and act as advocates within their own teams.
That leaves B&Q better prepared for the future. As sustainability expectations and legislation continue to grow, the business has a stronger foundation: informed colleagues, internal training capability, and a shared language for turning climate ambition into practical action.
If you want to turn climate targets into action, talk to the Lighthouse Sustainability team today!