Flash Eurobarometer 549 (SMEs, Resource Efficiency and Green Markets)

Attitudes of SMEs towards green markets and resource efficiency.<br>Topics: actions taken with regard to resource efficiency: save water, save energy, use predominantly renewable energy, save materials, switch to greener suppliers of materials, minimize waste, sell residues and waste to another company, recycling within the company, design products easier to maintain / repair / reuse, other, none; planned implementation of selected of the aforementioned measures in the next two years; impact of the undertaken resource efficiency actions on production costs in the last two years; percentage of annual turnover invested on average per year in more resource efficiency; use of renewable energy sources; percentage of energy consumed generated on-site; types of support relied on with regard to the efforts to increase resource efficiency: own financial resources, own technical expertise, external support, other; types of external support with regard to the efforts to increase resource efficiency: public funding, private funding from banks / investment companies / venture capital funds, private funding from friends and relatives, advice or other non-financial assistance from public administration, advice or other non-financial assistance from private consulting and audit companies, advice or other non-financial assistance from business associations and clusters, advice or other non-financial assistance from supply chain partners, other; difficulties encountered when trying to set up resource efficiency actions: complexity of administrative or legal procedures, difficulty to adapt environmental legislation to the company, technical requirements of legislation not being up to date, difficulty in choosing the right resource efficiency actions for the company, cost of environmental actions, lack of specific environmental expertise, lack of supply of required materials / parts / products or services, lack of demand for resource efficient products or services, complexity associated with environmental labelling and certification, complex environmental reporting requirements, other, none; most useful issues with regard to increasing resource efficiency; business strategy in place to reduce carbon footprint and become climate neutral or negative; actions taken with regard to becoming climate neutral; share of recycled materials in own products; policy to extend life span of products: for all products, only for some products, no policy; offer of green products or services: company offers green products or services, company plans to do so in the next two years, no plans; percentage of these green products or services in annual turnover of latest available fiscal year; types of support relied on with regard to the production of green products or services: own financial resources, own technical expertise, external support, other; types of external support with regard to the production of green products or services: public funding, private funding from banks / investment companies / venture capital funds, private funding from friends and relatives, advice or other non-financial assistance from public administration, advice or other non-financial assistance from private consulting and audit companies, advice or other non-financial assistance from business associations and clusters, advice or other non-financial assistance from supply chain partners, other; most useful issues with regard to expanding range of green products or services; most useful issues with regard to launching a range of green products or services.

Demography: information about the company (limited to activities in the own country): number of employees, number of full time employees working in green jobs some or all of the time; development of number of employees over the last three years; difficulties finding and hiring staff with the right skills in the last two years; year of company establishment; development of turnover in the last three years; total turnover in 2023; selling of products and / or services.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; NACE-Code; region; nation group; weighting factor.