Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy for SME Green Guide

Last Updated: February 7, 2026

At SME Green Guide (accessible from smegreenguide.com), the privacy of our visitors is one of our main priorities. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by SME Green Guide and how we use it, in compliance with the UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 and the GDPR.

1. Data Collection and Usage

We collect personal information only when voluntarily submitted by our visitors (e.g., via contact forms or newsletter signups). This may include:

  • Name and Email Address.
  • Business Name and Industry.
  • IP address and browser cookies (collected automatically).

We use this data to provide compliance updates, improve our “Green Pulse” ticker, and serve relevant industry information.

2. Google AdSense and Third-Party Advertising

We use Google AdSense to monetize our content. As a third-party vendor, Google uses cookies to serve ads on our site.

  • Google’s DART Cookie: Enables Google to serve ads to our users based on their visit to smegreenguide.com and other sites on the internet.
  • Personalized Advertising: Users may opt-out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings.
  • Third-Party Vendors: Other third-party ad networks may also use cookies and web beacons to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements. SME Green Guide has no access to or control over these cookies used by third-party advertisers.

3. Cookie Policy

Like any other website, SME Green Guide uses ‘cookies’. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.

4. Data Protection Rights (UK GDPR/GDPR)

Under the UK Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, you have the following rights:

  • The Right to Access: You can request copies of your personal data.
  • The Right to Rectification: You can request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate.
  • The Right to Erasure: You can request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time via our “Consent Manager” banner.

5. Children’s Information

SME Green Guide does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13 (or 16 in certain jurisdictions). If you think your child provided this kind of information on our website, please contact us immediately.

6. Contact Us

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at: Email: info@SMEGreenGuide.com

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who we share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

We use Google AdSense to serve ads based on user interests.