Responsible Entrepreneurship for SMEs

Education/ Entrepreneurial Mindset
Business Start-Ups & Transfers
Growth / Competitiveness
Reducing Regulatory Burden / Listening to SME's
Insolvency / Bankruptcy / Stigma of Failure
Taxation & Accounting

Responsible Entrepreneurship means how to run a business in a way that enhances its positive contribution to society whilst minimising negative impacts on people and the environment. Responsible Entrepreneurship is, therefore, a way of adding value to both the business and society. It denotes voluntary business strategies to achieve sustainable development and is fully in line with the notion of corporate social responsibility, which the EU has defined as «a concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis».

The Commission’s Enterprise DG has chosen Responsible Entrepreneurship for SMEs as the theme of exploratory work carried out under its 2002 Work Programme. This term was felt to be better suited to the reality of small and medium-sized enterprises since the CSR concept and tools developed by large companies are often not appropriate for engaging and communicating with SMEs. In fact, a 2001 survey carried out by the European Observatory for SMEs showed that many SMEs are involved in socially responsible activities without being familiar with the CSR concept.

The Responsible Entrepreneurship project - carried out with the help of a group of national experts nominated by EU Member States, candidate countries and Norway - came to an end in mid-2003. Its main result is a collection of 25 SME good practice cases from 16 European countries, available as a brochure in 14 languages. These cases – together with an additional 18 good practices identified by the expert group which could not be included in the brochure – can be viewed as an on-line directory on this page (only in English). The good practice directory is a first attempt to give recognition and greater visibility to the societal contribution of SMEs. The aim is to inspire other SMEs to improve their social and environmental impacts and to serve as a tool for awareness raising to SMEs’ trusted intermediary organisations.

Information on the following project objectives/results can be found on this website:

The project results will also contribute to the work of the European Multi-Stakeholder Forum on CSR,launched in October 2002, which has chosen SMEs as one of its four priority themes. The Round Table on SMEs will produce a report about its work in the first half of 2004 – the agenda, minutes and documents relating to meetings of the Round Table are publicly available on the Forum website. A pan-European awareness raising campaign for SMEs (Call for tenders nº 156708-2003 (ENTR/03/74), funded under the MAP2003 Work Programme, will be launched by Enterprise DG in 2004.

For further information on the Responsible Entrepreneurship project and/or the SME Round Table of the European Multi-Stakeholder Forum on CSR, please contact:

European Commission
Enterprise Directorate-General
Unit I.4 Corporate Social Responsibility
E-mail:entr-csr@ec.europa.eu
B - 1049 Brussels

Online Directory of good practice cases

Responsible Entrepreneurship brochure

Observatory Report: European SMEs and social and environmental responsibility 

Press release (30/05/2002)

Flyer: Highlights from Observatory Report

Presentation of 2002 Observatory Report on "European SMEs and social and environmental responsibility" on 29 May 2002. Summary record

Last update:  04/07/2006