Can a social network help European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) become greener? Terri Kafyeke presented the GreenEcoNet project at the Transnational Workshop on Institutional Support Schemes and Structures for Resource Efficiency in SMEs held at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in Berlin on 4 December 2013. She discussed common barriers faced by SMEs in the path towards sustainability and described how the GreenEcoNet platform, currently in development, could help get past them. The presentation slides are available for download.

Transitioning the existing economic system in Europe to a green economy in the long term requires making existing knowledge and best practice available to a wider community. The EU-funded GreenEcoNet project will be initiating a web platform for SMEs to find relevant information, to identify potential partner networks and to receive potential solutions enabling them to proceed towards a green economy. Furthermore, the project aims to gather and generate knowledge support to policy making in order to facilitate enabling conditions for effectively fostering a green economy.

Terri Kafyeke presented a rapid overview of GreenEcoNet at the Transnational Workshop on Institutional Support Schemes and Structures for Resource Efficiency in SMEs held at the Federal Ministry of Environment in Berlin on 4 December 2013. The workshop was organized as part of the PRESOURCE project (Promotion of Resource Efficiency in SMEs in Central Europe). Among the participants were representatives from Germany, Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary.

Following the presentation, participants addressed many comments and questions to Terri Kafyeke and Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers, which turned into a general discussion on the feasibility of such a platform.