Purpose: The aim of this research is to understand how government incentives (financial and non-financial) influence the relationship between green innovation and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in SMEs.Design/methodology/approach: To contribute to the literature, this research uses empirical evidence of 204 Pakistani small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and tests the moderating role of government support between green innovation and SDGs.Findings: The findings indicate that green innovation has a significant influence on SDGs, community development and environmental activities. The government support significantly strengthens the relationship between green innovation and environmental practices, while it does not moderate the path between green innovation and community development.Practical implications: The research recommends SMEs focus on the adoption of green innovation and green technology to protect the environment and facilitate the community. Moreover, the research advises the government to assist SMEs financially and nonfinancially, so they will in turn help in the attainment of SDGs.Originality/value: This research is the first attempt to assess the importance of green innovation in SDGs with a moderating role of government incentives in emerging SMEs. It provides several useful implications for policymaking.

For this research, we examined the influence of access to domestic and international financing on sustainability performance with a mediating role of innovative performance and a moderating role of access to government support. Data were collected from 317 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through structured questionnaires. The results indicated that access to domestic and international financing significantly contributes to sustainability and innovative performances. Accordingly, we found a partial mediating role of innovative performance between access to domestic financing and sustainability performance as well as between access to international financing and sustainability performance. Access to government support significantly moderates the relationship between access to domestic finances and innovative performance as well as between access to international finances and innovative performance. Practitioners and policymakers should encourage national and international financial institutions and banks to facilitate SMEs by lending them funds for innovative activities and sustainability performance. Moreover, the government should support SMEs, so that they can contribute to economic growth and the gross domestic product. The implications from these matters will be further discussed in this paper.

Green practices and sustainability are mounting in business organizations around the world. All sized firms have concentrated on environmental and social strategies to benefit the societies that payback in sales and revenue. However, little is known about how Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) improve green strategies in emerging markets, especially in Pakistan. To contribute to the existing literature in small businesses, this research tests the influence of financial resources on green business strategy (environmental, social and economic) with a mediating role of competitive business strategy (differentiation and cost leadership). The results of the structural equation modeling based on the data set of 217 Pakistani SMEs indicate that financial resources do not directly influence green business strategy. However, the relationship between financial resources and green business strategy is significantly mediated by competitive business strategy. This research recommends SMEs utilize their financial resources efficiently and economically to practice green activities.