More SMEs are increasingly receiving sustainability information requests from their customers, large corporates, financial entities or administrations. What information has to be compiled? How does it have to be organised? And how to present it without it becoming a further burden for the SME? BasquESG wants to help Basque SMEs to do so in a straightforward, practical way that is in line with European standards. 

BasquESG is taking a further step in its rolling out of sustainability among the Basque business fabric with the addition of 14 brokers (business associations, clusters, chambers of commerce and development agencies) signed up to Basque Circular SME; they will be directly involved in taking the initiative to small and medium-sized enterprises in their spheres of action. Bringing those brokers onboard will boost BasquESG’s dissemination and mentoring capacity, harnessing its proximity and established relationship with the SMEs. 

During the coming weeks, these organisations will run awareness-raising actions and launch working groups to mentor SMEs on managing their ESG information and on preparing their sustainability reporting as per the voluntary standard developed by the European Commission. Interested SMEs have until 30 November to express their interest. 

This new phase bolsters BasquESG’s goal to provide Basque SMEs with a common, straightforward, and EU-aligned system to assess, report, and improve sustainability performance; while, in turn, being able to respond more efficiently to the requests for ESG information from customers, value chains, financial institutions, investors and public administrations. 

From awareness raising to practical support for SMEs. 

The involvement of the brokers will be two-fold. On the one hand, during the coming weeks, they will run communication actions and awareness-raising sessions aimed at the companies of their respective spheres of action. The goal will be to explain what BasquESG is, what opportunities it offers SMEs and how they can take part in the initiative. 

And on the other, each broker will be the driving force to create and facilitate a working group of SMEs in its area that are interested in making practical progress and being mentored in the management of its sustainability by Euskalit. 

In those groups, the participating SMEs will receive training and technical support to compile, organise and structure their environmental, social and governance (ESG) information; and to progress in prepare their own sustainability reporting as per the Voluntary Standard (VS) (formerly VSME) developed by the European Commission. The programme is designed for companies to acquire the skills to let them subsequently update and improve that information with greater autonomy. Participation in and the technical assistance of the programme are free of charge for the participating SMEs. BasquESG already has 145 SMEs signed up, which reflects the growing interested of the Basque business fabric in having a common and structured way to manage and communicate their sustainability information. Interested SMEs have until 30 November to sign up. 

Do you want to take part?

If you are a Basque SME and you want to begin to prepare your sustainability information with free technical mentoring, you have until 30 November to express your interest through any of the 14 participating entities.

Interested companies can find full information about the initiative, the VS standard, the available services and resources and the evolution of the project in the BasquESG specific area on the Ihobe website.

Participating brokers

The brokers that have joined the programme and through which the SMEs can express interest in taking part are as follows: