Increasing Resource Efficiency and Decreasing Carbon Footprints of Small and Medium sized Enterprises

Resource efficiency forms the foundation of sustainable economic growth. By producing more products with fewer resources the contribution to climate change can be decreased in addition to conserving natu-ral resources and lowering production costs. Supporting small and medium sized enterprises in their efforts to improve resource efficiency and reduce carbon footprint is a key challenge for climate change mitigation and adaptation, while SMEs play a vital role in emerging economies and developing countries and are essential for both environmental performance in industry as well as contribution to economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation.

The objective of the project “Increasing Resource Efficiency and Decreasing Carbon Footprints of Small and Medium sized Enterprises” is to improve resource efficiency and productivity as well as decrease carbon footprints of SMEs in developing countries and emerging markets. The SMEs targeted are sup-pliers to multinational companies within global value chains. As a pilot case, the project focuses on SMEs in the automotive sector in Mexico.

The output of the actual project is to develop and test the Basic Module of the envisaged toolbox.

Based on the experiences from the development and testing of the basic training module (BTM), a strategy paper will be drafted which resumes lessons learned, dissemination strategy and rec-ommendation for donor agencies and integration of results into relevant international processes. The extended follow-up modules will also be conceptualised and integrated into the strategy paper.

The project is a part of the CSCP priority working area Encouraging Responsible Industrial De-velopment.

The project is carried out with the financial assistance of the United Nations Environment Pro-gramme (UNEP). It is carried out in collaboration with PREMAnet e.V., the local trainers from PREMAnet e.V. , and the local consultants in Mexico.