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While constituting a majority of businesses, SMEs generally lack the awareness of their environmental impacts as well as the understanding that higher environmental performance can be a competitive advantage. They also have limited capacity to interpret and respond to relevant policy incentives. Many EU and other OECD countries have addressed this challenge by implementing information-based tools and regulatory and financial incentives to encourage SMEs to improve their environmental performance, to comply with and go beyond regulatory requirements. EaP countries are only starting to design similar policies and engaging in a dialogue with the business community on these issues.

The main objectives of the Regional Conference on "Promoting better environmental performance of SMEs in Eastern Partnership countries" held on 22-23 March 2016 in Chisinau, Moldova were:

• To present the second edition of the "SME Greening Toolkit" prepared by the OECD secretariat in order to help European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries to strengthen their government policies to promote better environmental performance (voluntary environmental compliance and adoption of green business practices) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs);
• To discuss and disseminate the results of pilot projects on SME greening in four EaP countries (Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine); and
• To exchange international experience in the design and implementation of policies and instruments for SME greening.

The meeting brought together representatives of the EaP countries’ ministries of environment and economy, business support organisations, business associations, and experts from the region and OECD/EU countries.

Meeting documents Agenda, (Russian version) Summary record: will be made available shortly.

Presentations All meeting presentations are available for consultation.

Greening SMEs project documents:

• Environmental Policy Toolkit for Greening SMEs in the EU Eastern Partnership Countries (Second edition), (Russian version)
• SME Greening Toolkit’s Policy highlights, (Russian version)
• Pilot project report on Greening SMEs in Armenia (Russian) , Georgia (Russian), Moldova (Russian) and Ukraine (Russian)
• Pocket guide for resource efficient practices in the Ukrainian concrete products industry (Russian version)

 

• More information on EaPGREEN: Greening economies in the European Union's Eastern Partnership countries