Designing and Implementing New Sustainable Solutions in SMB to Increase Their Qualification and Competitiveness: Resources and Environment as Strategic Factors in Business Choices

摘要

A high increase of resource productivity and the reduction of pollution emissions have by now to be considered a priority in all economies so as to reduce the demand for natural resources (energy and materials) and, at the same time, the ecological burdens. These ambitious targets can be gradually achieved if enterprises are able to consider the limitedness of resources as an opportunity for advantageous change, so as to primarily improve their qualification and competitiveness in the market. This fundamental result could be pursued by continuously developing and implementing innovative solutions, at all stages of the production cycle, that generate revenue, on the one side, and meet societies' needs, in a sustainable perspective, on the other. These goals could be achieved if products and processes are devised and realized in ways to increase the utilization intensity of goods, and to change how energy and materials are utilized. These paradigms should be considered as strategic for the development of SMB, even if they have more difficulties to develop and implement new sustainable yet competitive solutions than large enterprises have. Therefore, greater attention must be given to SMB, and appropriate measures and tools have to be made available by Public Authorities (Transnational, National and Local), so as to prompt such innovations. The fundamental concept of such a new phase of development is to re-orient the whole economic system from open-cycle to closed-cycle, in order to realize a substantial recirculation/regeneration of resources. To do this economically, all businesses (large, medium and small) have to adopt suited design methods, that will make it possible to devise the most economic solution, both for products and processes, able to satisfy, at the same time, the enterprise's aims and the society's needs. The most appropriate solution, at every place and time, can be devised, designed and realized by integrating all elements contributing to the global effectiveness/performance, in order to maximize the results related to the main factors influencing competitiveness; resourcesenvironment, quality-productivity, variety-scale, risk-safety. The ways of selecting and developing a resource productivity-oriented yet competitive innovative solution are identified here, based on the relation among project inputs, general features and production modalities, and among the manifold aspects of the results contributing to a competitive advantage to enterprises. The evaluation of the results that can be achieved-before the decision-and which are achieved-after the realization-at company level can be made by means of appropriate indicators measuring the several facets of the production activity global performance, and others able to measure the local and socio-economic effects. Finally, several basic economic policy tools and measures that should be devised and adopted by Governments and local Authorities, in order to help prompt and spread the outlined pathways in SMB, are presented in this work.