Sustainable SMEs Network Utilization

Integrating environmental concerns into marketing practice poses many challenges for different enterprises regardless of their size. Even though studies on sustainable development have primarily focused on large organizations, there is also a growing body of research in Micro, Small and Medium sized enterprise (SME) context. For example, environmental issues (referring to natural environment) have been addressed in SMEs by Clemens (2006) and Hussey and Eaghan (2007). In spite of these contributions the topic has received less research interest in the field of marketing. The overall approach has been to encourage SMEs to become more or less ‘green’, and thus more responsible (Jenkins 2006). What are less understood therefore are the positive changes SMEs are already making as well as the impact these changes are having on the network level. This paper contributes to this by reporting on an empirical study of two Finnish enterprises that are making ecologically sound business practices part of their core marketing strategy. Moreover, these enterprises are explicitly taking a network approach. Of central importance to the study therefore is a development of our understanding of how the sustainability of the SMEs influences and is influenced by the network in which they are embedded.