Competitive Business Program

In the emerging markets, sustainability reporting is a critical competitive differentiator for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to enter global value chains. The Competitive Business Program aims to promote sustainability reporting among SMEs in the program’s target countries, helping to improve SMEs’ competitiveness and to facilitate market access.

The second phase of the program was launched in September 2016 by GRI and the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), which is the sole funder of the project. The program is scheduled to run until August 2020, and is being implemented in Colombia, Ghana, Indonesia, Peru, South Africa and Vietnam, with the support of local implementation partners.

The program has a strong emphasis on working in the different country-specific contexts. Therefore, GRI has established local country desks in the target countries. In each country, efforts are focused on key sectors to produce a tangible impact and to cater to sector-specific needs.

The Competitive Business Program is funded by the Swiss Confederation State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The objective of the program is to contribute to a better integration of SMEs into global value chains, ultimately resulting in more jobs and income opportunities. To achieve this, the program emphasizes increased sustainability reporting, especially from a sector-specific perspective.

The objective will be realized through the following three pillars:

Pillar 1: Develop SME capacity for reporting	Pillar 2: Enable a conducive reporting environment	Pillar 3: Foster demand for sustainability data
Increasing SMEs’ presence in global value chains by ensuring that SMEs have the skills and tools to achieve more focused reports on sector specific sustainability impacts. Developing ‘application of the Standards for SMEs’ tool to help SMEs report on material topics. Maximizing sustainability and scale of the outreach to SMEs by creating a dedicated group of local trainers among the implementation partners to transfer and anchor the knowledge within existing structures and achieve a broad strengthening of SME capacity.	Working on a global and national level to enhance the conducive environment for SMEs to start and continue sustainability reporting. Engaging with global actors to create policy briefs and analysis and in engage in global policy dialogues. Engaging locally with national policy makers and market regulators, enhancing governmental support for sustainability reporting.	Training data users (e.g. civil society, governments, media) to understand sustainability reports of companies and to hold these companies accountable accordingly. Helping data user groups to understand how to demand and use the sustainability data for advocacy, partnerships, consumer action, and investment decisions; or to improve public information, resulting in greater pressure on multinational enterprises and their suppliers to report on their sustainability impacts.

Pillar 1:
Develop SME capacity for reporting

Pillar 2:
Enable a conducive reporting environment

Pillar 3:
Foster demand for sustainability data

Increasing SMEs’ presence in global value chains by ensuring that SMEs have the skills and tools to achieve more focused reports on sector specific sustainability impacts.
Developing ‘application of the Standards for SMEs’ tool to help SMEs report on material topics.

Maximizing sustainability and scale of the outreach to SMEs by creating a dedicated group of local trainers among the implementation partners to transfer and anchor the knowledge within existing structures and achieve a broad strengthening of SME capacity.

Working on a global and national level to enhance the conducive environment for SMEs to start and continue sustainability reporting.
Engaging with global actors to create policy briefs and analysis and in engage in global policy dialogues.
Engaging locally with national policy makers and market regulators, enhancing governmental support for sustainability reporting.

Training data users (e.g. civil society, governments, media) to understand sustainability reports of companies and to hold these companies accountable accordingly.
Helping data user groups to understand how to demand and use the sustainability data for advocacy, partnerships, consumer action, and investment decisions; or to improve public information, resulting in greater pressure on multinational enterprises and their suppliers to report on their sustainability impacts.

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