This page has only limited features, please log in for full access.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in the national economies of the EU member states. This economic activity has an inevitable environmental impact; however, environmental performance indicators are mostly measured at larger companies. Since the ecological footprint (EF) is a suitable measure of unsustainability, this paper considers it as a measure of the environmental impact of SMEs. An EF calculator for SMEs was developed that is freely available online, and it is a methodological innovation per se. Our previous research projects highlighted that the calculator must be easy-to-use and reliable; therefore, the calculator considers only the common, standardizable, and comparable elements of EF. Our results are based on validated ecological footprint data of 73 Hungarian SMEs surveyed by an online ecological footprint calculator. In order to validate and test the usefulness of the calculator, interviews were conducted with respondents, and results were also checked. The paper presents benchmark data of ecological footprint indicators of SMEs obtained from five groups of enterprises (construction, white-collar jobs, production, retail and/or wholesale trade, and transportation). Statistical results are explained with qualitative data (such as environmental protection initiatives, business models, etc.) of the SMEs surveyed. Our findings could be used as a benchmark for the assessment of environmental performance of SMEs in Central- and Eastern Europe.
Áron Szennay; Cecília Szigeti; Judit Beke; László Radácsi. Ecological Footprint as an Indicator of Corporate Environmental Performance—Empirical Evidence from Hungarian SMEs. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1000 .
AMA StyleÁron Szennay, Cecília Szigeti, Judit Beke, László Radácsi. Ecological Footprint as an Indicator of Corporate Environmental Performance—Empirical Evidence from Hungarian SMEs. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (2):1000.
Chicago/Turabian StyleÁron Szennay; Cecília Szigeti; Judit Beke; László Radácsi. 2021. "Ecological Footprint as an Indicator of Corporate Environmental Performance—Empirical Evidence from Hungarian SMEs." Sustainability 13, no. 2: 1000.
Scientific and social discourse examines primarily the environmental performance of large enterprise actors. Although these large enterprises usually operate on an international level, over half of the added value created in the European Union and thus over half of the environmental damage are generated by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Nevertheless, while the tools and expertise required to measure environmental performance are available for large enterprises, the SME sector has only limited access to these tools. As part of our research, we have developed an ecological footprint (EF) calculator applicable to the specificities of the SME sector, which has been tested on six Hungarian companies operating in different sectors and organisational frameworks. The test results indicate that the managerial information system of partnerships includes all the main inputs that are necessary to estimate a company’s EF. However, in the case of sole proprietorships, most of the required data can only be acquired by estimation. Our EF calculations on analysed firms cannot be considered as representative data. But on the base of the case studies, we can suggest that our EF calculator for SMEs is suitable to take a more comprehensive survey on EF of Hungarian and international firms, in order to generate sectoral benchmarks. Ecological footprint among analysed enterprises ranged between 5102 and 263,589 global square metres. It is caused mainly by (1) the sector (e.g. constructions have generally larger footprints than office activities) and (2) the size, expressed in number of employees or value added. To increase transparency of the environmental performance of the SME sector, we recommend that the supplementary annex of partnerships includes the main input data necessary for the calculation of the EF in a comparable and consistent way, in natural units of measurement. With such information and our calculator, it would be possible to determine the average environmental impact of the individual sectors, which would provide an appropriate starting point for the environmental investments of enterprises.
C. Szigeti; Á. Szennay; J. Lisányi Endréné Beke; J. R. Polák-Weldon; L. Radácsi. Challenges of Corporate Ecological Footprint Calculations in the SME Sector in Hungary: Case Study Evidence from Six Hungarian Small Enterprises. Agroecological Footprints Management for Sustainable Food System 2020, 345 -363.
AMA StyleC. Szigeti, Á. Szennay, J. Lisányi Endréné Beke, J. R. Polák-Weldon, L. Radácsi. Challenges of Corporate Ecological Footprint Calculations in the SME Sector in Hungary: Case Study Evidence from Six Hungarian Small Enterprises. Agroecological Footprints Management for Sustainable Food System. 2020; ():345-363.
Chicago/Turabian StyleC. Szigeti; Á. Szennay; J. Lisányi Endréné Beke; J. R. Polák-Weldon; L. Radácsi. 2020. "Challenges of Corporate Ecological Footprint Calculations in the SME Sector in Hungary: Case Study Evidence from Six Hungarian Small Enterprises." Agroecological Footprints Management for Sustainable Food System , no. : 345-363.
“Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” was agreed upon in 2015 by the global community and proposes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the period between 2015 and 2030. Since the greater integration of goals was an explicit claim, there are numerous overlaps among them. One of the novelties of the SDGs is that, in order to achieve the set goals, the Agenda 2030 addresses not only the states but the businesses as well. In our study, the relationships between the SDGs were analyzed on the base of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) indicators linked to the goals. The analysis was carried out by cluster analysis. Our results indicate that there is a strong relationship to be found among nine of the 17 SDGs. That relationship is mainly technical, which is caused by the number of aligned (genuine) GRI indicators. Though there are relationships between the SDGs as well, their strength is much weaker. According to our classification of SDGs, we suggest that the gap of business attention among SDGs is smaller than it is showed by KPMG.
Áron Szennay; Cecília Szigeti; Norbert Kovács; Dániel Róbert Szabó. Through the Blurry Looking Glass—SDGs in the GRI Reports. Resources 2019, 8, 101 .
AMA StyleÁron Szennay, Cecília Szigeti, Norbert Kovács, Dániel Róbert Szabó. Through the Blurry Looking Glass—SDGs in the GRI Reports. Resources. 2019; 8 (2):101.
Chicago/Turabian StyleÁron Szennay; Cecília Szigeti; Norbert Kovács; Dániel Róbert Szabó. 2019. "Through the Blurry Looking Glass—SDGs in the GRI Reports." Resources 8, no. 2: 101.