Fostering Green Business Growth

19 - 30 October 2020 Green businesses save scarce resources, help maintain healthy ecosystems, minimize pollution and waste, limit greenhouse emissions, and provide green goods and services to enable more responsible consumption patterns. Green businesses are vital for a development model that delivers a triple bottom-line of prosperity, planet and people. Many entrepreneurs worldwide have understood that going green is not only good for the environment, but makes business sense too! By promoting businesses going green, countries unlock private sector investment in environmentally sound practices and technologies, reduce costs and protect ecosystems. By supporting companies developing green products and services, governments foster access to new markets, boost innovation and ensure that their SME stays ahead of competition. Developed and middle-income countries are leading the way in supporting green business development, while a number of low-income countries are also taking positive steps. This course looked at good practices in supporting green business growth with focus on the SME sector. It covered what works and what doesn’t work in supporting green business development, with various examples from around the world. OBJECTIVES This course provided the participant with an increased understanding of: • The global market for environmental goods and services and opportunities for the local economy • Market failures and the rationale for supporting green business growth • Opportunities and challenges at firm level: the internal and external drivers to going green • How to design an appropriate policy mix to make green business growth happen • Tested tools and approaches to support youth and women entrepreneurship CONTENTS This course provided both a conceptual and practical overview of the policies and instruments countries have at their disposition to support SMEs going green, including: • Green business development services, green business competitions, green business training, marketing, fast prototyping and B2B • Green innovation policies and green business incubation • Certification, eco-labelling and tracing in the supply chain • Green financial instruments: Green loans, green bonds and green investments • Ecosystem for green entrepreneurship development ACHIEVEMENT • Review state-of-the-art tools, policies and instruments for supporting greening businesses • Share experiences on the challenges and opportunities for supporting green business development in different contexts • Exchange knowledge with a community of green champions, practitioners and high level experts COMPETENCIES This course targeted professionals involved in the design and implementation of national or local strategies and instruments to support the greening of existing businesses and/or the development of new green products and services: • SME agencies, business development service providers and business incubators • Development practitioners responsible for green business finance and/or green business development • Development agencies sponsoring green SMEs and entrepreneurship • Workers and employers representatives • Members from civil society organizations and academia