Introduction
Aims
of the Project
Outcomes of the Project
Introduction (top)
The University of Technology Sydney and Ecobusiness Consultants Pty Ltd conducted a survey Small to Medium Enterprises in May 1999 to:
- Understand the level of awareness of environmental issues amongst the SME sector.
- Identify which industry sectors were committed to environmental issues.
- Determine which particular issues are of the most concern.
- Identify the existing barriers to SME’s implementing sustainable practices.
- Identify assistance that SME’s would use to become more sustainable.
Results of the survey include:
- A significant number of SME’s (66.25%) saw environmental sustainability as important or vital to their business.
- They believed that stakeholders including customers, suppliers and their staff saw environmental issues as important.
- They saw the most important issues as Waste Management, Water efficiency and Energy Efficiency.
- They indicated that the main barriers to addressing these issues were time and cost.
- SME’s ranked Financial Incentives, Tax Concessions and Subsidies, as the most useful forms of assistance that could be delivered by government.
- Other useful forms of assistance included promoting knowledge of legal obligations and identification of business opportunities.
The survey also highlighted the need to educate SME’s in terms of what environmental issues affected their business.
Aim of Current Project (top)
SME’s represent some "99 % of Australian enterprises employing a workforce of under 100 people and that companies of under 100 people are responsible for 60% of all employment in Australia".
SME’ s will look at environmental issues if cost benefits are attached to them and they gain a competitive advantage.
A region when addressing its Local Agenda 21 and its economic development plans has an opportunity to merge the two and gain a competitive advantage on other regions by developing the "Green Advantage" in partnership with SME’s.
This project will:
Establish how SME’s can be assisted with Environmental Management Issues to:
- Improve long term economic and environmental sustainability of the region.
- Identify Environmental Management Products and Services in the region that can assist SME’s to obtain economic and environmental sustainability.
- Establish a Demonstration Program so that the program can be implemented across the region.
Outcomes of the Project (top)
This project will:
- Provide an overview of issues that affect SME’s in undertaking sustainable business practices.
- Examine supply chain linkages and develop an understanding of strategies to diffuse sustainable production process/practice to enhance productivity improvement.
- Prepare a report on information needs, access to these, gaps in information, barriers to access and implementation.
- Utilise results of this project to undertake future project developments to assist SME’s.
