ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses findings from a research on environmental performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India and offers recommendations on reducing SMEs' environmental impacts. Green practices that save costs are well diffused within SMEs—reducing energy, material and waste increases productivity while benefitting the environment. A small family-owned shoe maker is an SME, as is a manufacturer of high-technology electronics for aerospace customers. This makes it impossible to generalize and therefore for this study only engineering SMEs operating in industrial markets were considered. SMEs with greener product life-cycles may suggest a high level of maturity in the firm. In India, the apex body for the formulation and administration of rules, regulations and laws relating to SMEs is the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The German public bank Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau has a special fund for energy efficiency in SMEs.
