To green South-east Asia, help SMEs fund their sustainability efforts

WITH the worst of Covid-19 over, companies around the region are striving to restore pre-pandemic business-as-usual as quickly as possible. But having been buffeted by economic headwinds for the past three years and counting, recovery is proving slow for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Without coffers as deep as those of multinationals, nor strategies as robust, SMEs’ top priority is to survive. This could be bad news for global momentum around sustainability.

A survey of 800 SMEs conducted last year by DBS and Bloomberg Media Studios found that SMEs across six Asian markets, including Singapore, are struggling to transition to more sustainable models while balancing business growth, even as they acknowledge ESG as a priority.