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Small and medium enterprises are important economic actors and incidentally also an important source of environmental pollution. Given their limited size and manpower they often struggle to know all relevant environmental legislation applicable to them and are often not fully aware of their environmental impact. In order to fill these gaps, the programme ECAP (Environmental Compliance Assistance Programme) has been created that includes different actions (training, dissemination of good practice, promotion of tailor-made environmental management approaches). This project assessed the progress of these action against the original objectives of the programme. The final report is available for download.

Ecologic Institute assessed inter alia the

1. different training actions (general capacity building workshops, specific on-the job trainings e.g. for best practice exchange on EMAS),
2. the uptake of EMAS III and EMAS Easy by SMEs;
3. the amount of funding provided by specialised programmes for ECAP-relevant issues;
4. the implementation of the SME test in regulatory impact assessments;
5. the work of the EMAS expert group;
6. national approaches regarding EMAS.

Broadly speaking ECAP has performed well in meeting its key objectives and targets to support SMEs in the problems that they face in complying with environmental legislation and improving environmental performance. An evaluation of the ECAP programme should first recognise that the programme is very young. The programme has, in little more than three years, begun the process of providing SMEs with the support systems necessary to improve their environmental performance.

The findings from this study indicate that participants in ECAP programmes and events, and users of ECAP web resources, have been provided with the opportunity and access to information, tools and skills to deliver the five key areas identified in the EU communication.

ECAP is clearly a valuable programme but it does suffer from the difficulty of any programme aimed at smaller companies. Difficulties include engaging with SMEs due to lack of time and capacity and competing for SMEs attention. Specific suggestions have been discussed and the key themes seem to be: focus, deliver more detailed guidance, develop a clear identity for the programme and acknowledge the data limitations surrounding measuring SMEs environmental impact and compliance rates. For example training under ECAP should be more focussed and effective and also the information on relevant funding should be more focussed and user-friendly.

The final report [pdf, 2.4 MB, English] is available for download.