Sustainability has emerged as a critical focus for businesses worldwide, but how are companies genuinely driving change? This blog highlights initiatives from the finalists of the prestigious King Willem I Entrepreneurship Prize in the Netherlands, which recognizes innovation, entrepreneurship, resilience, sustainability, and inclusivity across three categories: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), Large Business, and Sustainability. This post explores how SMEs are transforming their products, processes, and management practices to embrace sustainability, even when it’s not always their core business model.

Resource Efficiency & Recycling: Reducing waste and promoting recycling are central to many firms’ strategies. For example, Fairphone designs durable, repairable smartphones to reduce electronic waste, and reduces demand for new raw materials by using 40% recycled plastics in their phones. Admesy BV replaced plastic with aluminium in its devices’ housing for better recyclability. Kraaijvanger Architects & Lagemaat Sloopwerken BV focused their recycling on buildings by salvaging reusable materials from demolition sites, reducing landfill waste and promoting resource conservation. Similarly, Sallandse Wegenbouw integrates recycled concrete and bio-based asphalt into road construction. When recycling within or across projects isn’t feasible, they turn to matching platforms like Duspot. Their commitment extends to designing circular offices with Cradle2Cradle floors & self-made meeting tables, and use of recycled-material workwear.

Eco-Friendly Production: Industries with heavy production processes adopt sustainable practices to minimize environmental impact. Schouten Europe produces plant-based proteins using non-GMO, locally sourced ingredients to reduce transportation emissions and waste. Van Vuuren Group has developed its own energy-efficient automated production line powered entirely by green energy. They use LED lights and electric loading machines to reduce the CO2 footprint, incorporating FSC-certified wood, water-based paints, and recycled materials in 50% of their doors. Similarly, Sallandse Wegenbouw focuses on fleet electrification, educating their machinists in “Het Nieuwe Draaien” from Green Deal, and tree planting to maintain its top CO2 certification.

Digital Eco-Friendly Practices: Digital transformation offers further opportunities to conserve resources. Companies like Klippa and Snakeware leverage digital technologies to reduce paper use, physical storage, and streamline operations, which conserves resources and reduces carbon footprints. Paperwork generates three times more CO2 emissions than the whole air traffic globally. EKI optimizes production through an online custom-ordering system, significantly reducing operational impact. However, these companies go even further. E.g. Klippa offsets all employee CO2 emissions through programs like Trees4All and aims for 100% green energy by 2025. They also optimize server use to avoid energy waste. Robin Radar leverages technology to protect biodiversity, and Delft Imaging Systems leases its solar-powered X-ray machines to enhance healthcare in resource-limited areas, combining sustainability, affordability, and social impact.

Green Infrastructure and Energy: Several SMEs incorporate sustainable design principles into their buildings and operations. As such, Sallandse and Snakeware’s offices are energy-neutral, EKI additionally generates energy for 800 households through a solar park on its roof, and Admesy contributes to local energy efficiency through their local industrial park “Energy Cluster”. Some, though, have redefined the infrastructure’s energy use. Here, Sallandse has also innovated a heat-capturing artificial grass football field, delivering energy, equivalent to 200000m3 natural gas and offsetting 350 tons CO2 emissions annually. Kraaijvanger uses green roofs, natural ventilation, and LEED/BREEAM-certified materials to design positive-environmental-footprint structures. Lagemaat’s Prinsenhof project alone saved 17,000 tons of landfill waste and prevented over 3,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

Scaling Sustainability Impact: Collaboration accelerates progress: these companies share knowledge, push standards and advance energy and sustainability transition in networks and partnerships. Kraaijvanger promotes sustainability through books, lectures, and partnerships with suppliers. Schouten shares its 5-step sustainability strategy globally in over 50 countries, Lagemaat partners with universities to advance circularity education and contributes to EU standards for recovery techniques, and Sallandse collaborates with networks like Infra FutureLabs to push sustainability in construction.

These initiatives demonstrate how sustainability transcends industry boundaries, manifesting as innovative practices, creative problem-solving, and impactful collaborations. Dutch SMEs are proving that even smaller organizations can lead the way in sustainability by reimagining their operations, products, and partnerships. What steps does your company take to align its work with eco-friendly principles?

Author: Olga Belousova - o.belousova@rug.nl