Growing Greener: Creating a Values-based ...

Growing Greener: Creating a Values-based Environmental Engagement Toolkit for SME Intermediaries An ESRC Impact Acceleration Account project This project combines leading-edge research on SME growth processes and environmental behaviours with practitioner expertise in SME engagement and climate change communication. Its primary aim is to help SMEs and intermediaries gain a better understanding of sustainable growth and its implications for their businesses. Project outline To meet the sustainability challenge, SMEs will need to make significant, and in some cases radical, changes to their day-to-day operational practices and also to their longer-term trajectories. Intermediaries such as professional associations, business advisors and economic development organisations can help SMEs make this transition successfully. The primary aim of this project is to help SMEs and intermediaries gain a better understanding of sustainable growth and its implications for their businesses. The ESRC IAA ‘Kickstarting Impact’ project, ‘Growing Green: SME perspectives on sustainable growth in a low carbon economy’ (2017-18) was led by Prof Richard Blundel (The Open University) and Dr Tina Fawcett (University of Oxford). We drew on the team’s multi-disciplinary research expertise to pilot an innovative values-based approach to engaging SME owners and managers in workshop-based conversations about climate change and other environmental issues. We completed a literature review and conducted a short questionnaire survey, the ‘Oxfordshire Sustainable Growth Survey 2017’, which helped to inform the workshop design. This was followed by two in-depth workshops, facilitated by Dr Chris Shaw from Climate Outreach. We also organised a webinar, hosted by Climate Outreach, and gave informal presentations to academics and policymakers. Other outputs included a research paper on the pilot project, presented at the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship conference in Belfast in November 2017, and a short-form video, in which workshop participants discuss their experiences. A second video asset from the pilot, featuring our University of Oxford and Oxfordshire Business Support partner, Sam Hampton, was also used as the basis for a learning activity in a new Open University undergraduate module, B327 Creating Futures: Sustainable Enterprise and Innovation. Next steps – engaging SME intermediaries The Growing Green research team has now secured Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Impact Acceleration Award (IAA) funding for a larger follow-on project, Growing Greener: Creating a New Values-based Environmental Engagement Toolkit for SME Intermediaries (2018-19). An expanded team will build on the findings of the pilot project, refine their engagement model and develop a comprehensive toolkit and accompanying resources for use by business support intermediaries. The aim is to broaden the scope and flexibility of the values-based approach, so that it can be used in a variety of scenarios where intermediaries are working directly with SMEs and seeking to promote more environmentally-sustainable practices. To find out more about the 'Growing Greener' project, or other work related to sustainability and enterprise, please contact Richard Blundel - email: [email protected]

http://business-school.open.ac.uk/research/growing-greener