KLIK - Climate reporting by KMUs - new research project
bifa Umweltinstitut GmbH, as part of a research network with the "Betriebswirtschaftliches Forschungszentrum für Fragen der mittelständischen Wirtschaft an der Universität Bayreuth e. V." and "Lehrstuhl für Betriebswirtschaftslehre I: Finanzwirtschaft und Bankbetriebslehre der Universität Bayreuth", was invited by the "Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF)" to submit a full proposal under the funding measure "Klimaschutz und Finanzwirtschaft (KlimFi)".
The aim of the project is to sensitise SMEs to sustainable and climate-relevant issues and future regulatory requirements and to jointly develop a guideline that enables SMEs to map sustainable activities in the form of transparent and comparable reporting and to integrate them usefully into their business processes. Economic and technical issues will be examined, among other things using methods from the field of life cycle assessment. In concrete terms, the aim will be to examine an upcoming obligation for climate or sustainability reporting for unlisted SMEs and mid-sized companies with regard to the added value, the costs and the challenges of implementation.
In addition, the consideration of sustainability and, in particular, climate protection and climate risk aspects in the lending process will be examined. For this purpose, expert interviews will be conducted with representatives of trade associations, rating agencies and auditing firms, institutions of financial supervision, banking associations and banks in order to obtain additional information and individual assessments of the operational implementation and integration of these aspects in the corporate lending business from the perspective of representative actors. In particular, we hope to gain new insights into the role and current significance of sustainability reports in the lending process as an instrument for assessing companies and creditworthiness.
Are you interested?
We are looking for SMEs who are interested in this topic and who are willing to participate in an exchange within the framework of expert discussions, online surveys, workshops and networking events. You are not entering into any actual obligations with a possible acceptance, it would merely be the signal that we may approach you when this project step is pending with us. An informal expression of interest or an LOI by 15.01.2022 is sufficient proof for us for the time being.
If you would like to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in an exciting research project and work together with an interdisciplinary team of engineers and economists from science and practice, we look forward to reading or hearing from you.
You are also welcome to forward this link to your team and your practice partners from your network.
