Financing Responsible Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: An International Overview of Policies and Support Programmes

Susanne Durst,Wolfgang Gerstlberger

doi:10.3390/jrfm14010010

Abstract

In the last few years, the financing of responsibly operating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has become the focus of attention of several national and international bodies. Consequently, a number of policies and support programmes have been established aimed at supporting SMEs that take a responsible approach concerning the company and its operations. Against this background, this article presents a comprehensive international overview of support programmes for financing responsible SMEs. Based on systematic desk research, documents of national governments as well as supranational and international organisations have been investigated. The findings reveal that there are strong regional differences in terms of support policy approaches, intensity, and criteria. The largest part of the identified programmes has been launched by the European Union and/or its member states. Additionally, the findings clarify that the primary focus of extant programmes is on the environmental dimension of sustainability, mainly energy-related questions. The social dimension has been neglected so far in the programmes.

Highlights

Several international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and European Investment Bank (EIB) have formulated policies for the financing of responsible small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) (EIB 2020; OECD 2017; UNEP 2017) as part of their political future agenda
We reviewed the so-called grey literature provided by government entities, non-governmental organisations (e.g., Swiss Climate Foundation), financial organisations (e.g., EIB, European Investment Fund (EIF)), and international organisations such as the UN and OECD
This can be explained by the uneven spread of development (Thuard et al 2019; Yoshino and Taghizadeh-Hesary 2018)

Summary

Introduction

Several international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and European Investment Bank (EIB) have formulated policies for the financing of responsible small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) (EIB 2020; OECD 2017; UNEP 2017) as part of their political future agenda. These policies have a “holistic approach” (UNEP 2019) in common. It is not clear from the literature if the implemented support programmes are multi-dimensional or if they rather focus on a specific dimension (e.g., environment or social) of responsibility (e.g., EIB 2020)

Methods

Results

Conclusion