Industry Net Zero Accelerator

SME Sustainability Accelerator

Future Ready SMEs

Sustainability for competitiveness, resilience, and efficiency

While many large organizations are taking actions to reduce their environmental impact, SMEs and mid-sized enterprises, which account for 30-50% of total GHGs, often lack the resources and guidance to begin their sustainability journey.

The SME Sustainability Accelerator supports manufacturing SMEs and Mid-sized companies to accelerate the sustainability transformation while remaining competitive by providing implementable guidance to address their specific needs and challenges.

Our objectives

Strategic value

Demonstrating sustainability's strategic value and benefits to shift from a cost to an investment mindset

Tailored roadmap

Driving transformation with a tailored roadmap based on articulated needs of SMEs and real-world best examples

Support and collaboration

Identifying public and private sector support and collaborations to help SMEs adopt sustainable practices

A three-phase approach

1 Harmonized request

Implement a harmonized supplier sustainability data request form to reduce the burden on SME suppliers.

2 Knowledge transfer

Guide SME suppliers on data collection and reporting through a digital guidance manual.

3 Automated data collection

Support SME suppliers to automate data collection and sharing, thereby reducing manual work.

1. A new harmonized questionnaire

33 questions spanning across 8 thematic categories

Environmental management systems, compliance & targets

4 questions

Energy management

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions management

Water management

Waste management & circularity

Occupational health & safety (OHS)

Biodiversity & ecosystem management

Working conditions & employee wellbeing

2. Online Guidance Manual

By translating complex disclosure mandates into clear, step-by-step calculations and actions, this tool enables suppliers to implement a systemic structure to embed, validate, and scale sustainability across operations, while realizing competitiveness and resilience.

Mission

Empower suppliers

Equip SMEs with expertise required to respond accurately to ESG disclosures and gain competitiveness

Scale transformation

Enable enterprise customers to standardize and scale sustainability improvements across thousands of partners

Action-driven pathway

Transition to maturity-based roadmap to unlock immediate operational benefits with resilience and value creation in the long-term

A continuous-improvement journey

Prepare - Respond - Improve

The Business Value

3. Automated data collection

Phase 3 will be launched soon to identify the best strategies to help SMEs automate data collection and exchange.

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Industry Net Zero Accelerator

A World Economic Forum Initiative

Resources SME Sustainability Accelerator Case Studies Get Involved