A Review of Interventions to Encourage SMEs to Make Environmental Improvements

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of the world economy but they are thought to be responsible for around 60% of all carbon dioxide emissions and 70% of all pollution. SMEs often have major problems with limited resources, limited knowledge, and limited technical capabil...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environment and planning. C, Government & policy Government & policy, 2009-04, Vol.27 (2), p.279-301
Main Authors: Parker, Craig M, Redmond, Janice, Simpson, Mike
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbon emissions
Environmental policy
Pollution control
Public policy
Small and medium sized enterprises
State intervention
Strategic planning
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Summary:Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are an important part of the world economy but they are thought to be responsible for around 60% of all carbon dioxide emissions and 70% of all pollution. SMEs often have major problems with limited resources, limited knowledge, and limited technical capabilities to deal with their own negative environmental impact. SMEs exhibit widely differing characteristics and commitment where environmental issues are concerned. Yet under these conditions they are all expected to engage in environmental improvement. Interventions that encourage environmental improvement are often polarised between regulation and legislation at one extreme and voluntary environmental agreement at the other. It is clear that a holistic mixture of interventions is necessary to achieve maximum engagement and environmental improvement by all SMEs. In this paper we categorise the different levels of environmental commitment observed in SMEs and develop a selection or ‘toolkit’ of intervention strategies that might be deployed within each category of SME.
ISSN:0263-774X
1472-3425
DOI:10.1068/c0859b