Flash Eurobarometer 441 (European SMEs and the Circular Economy)

Activities of European small and medium enterprises with regard to circular economy.<br>Topics: circular economy related activities in the last three years: re-plan water usage and re-usage, use renewable energy, re-plan energy usage, minimize waste, redesign products and services to minimize use of materials; (planned) investment of company’s turnover in the aforementioned activities (percent per year); related problems: lack of human resources, lack of expertise with regard to implementation, complex administrative or legal procedures, cost of meeting regulations and standards, difficulties accessing finance; reasons for not having undertaken any measures; assessment of the difficulty to access finance; way of finance: standard bank loan, green loan, EU related funds, government grant, alternative funding sources, self-finance; evaluation of the information available on finance in the own country; awareness of financial incentives through government programmes to support activities with regard to circular economy; availability of the following alternative sources of financing in the own country: crowdfunding, green banks or other private institutions, peer-to-peer-lending, business angels, risk or venture capital, capital market; access to the aforementioned sources of financing.

Demography: information about the company: number of employees, year of company establishment, region; total turnover in 2015; development of turnover since January 2015 (in percent); direct selling to final consumers and / or to other companies or organisations; percentage of the company’s turnover in 2015 invested in research and development.

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