How Efficient Is the Cohesion Policy in Supporting Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy?

Carla Henriques, Clara Viseu, António Trigo, Maria Gouveia and Ana Amaro
Additional contact information
Clara Viseu: Polytechnic of Coimbra, Coimbra Business School Research Centre|Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração de Coimbra (ISCAC), 3045-601 Coimbra, Portugal
António Trigo: Polytechnic of Coimbra, Coimbra Business School Research Centre|Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração de Coimbra (ISCAC), 3045-601 Coimbra, Portugal
Maria Gouveia: Polytechnic of Coimbra, Coimbra Business School Research Centre|Instituto Superior de Contabilidade e Administração de Coimbra (ISCAC), 3045-601 Coimbra, Portugal
Ana Amaro: Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores de Coimbra (INESCC)—Departamento de Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, University of Coimbra, Polo 2, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-55

Abstract: Funds from the European Union that are devoted to fostering a low-carbon economy are aimed at assisting Member States and regions in implementing the required investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and smart distribution electricity grids, and for research and innovation in these areas. In this context, we assessed the implementation of these funds in small and medium-sized enterprises across different beneficiary countries and regions of the European Union. Therefore, this study uses a non-radial slack-based data envelopment analysis model coupled with cluster analysis that covers multiple aspects of evaluation, including two inputs and two outputs, to assess 102 programs from 22 countries. Overall, we were able to ascertain that there are 25 efficient operational programs that remain robustly efficient, whereas 51 remain robustly inefficient for data perturbations of 5 and 10%. Under the current output level, there was almost no input surplus. Therefore, to promote a low-carbon economy, operational program managers should concentrate on solving the problems behind the poor results achieved, both in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reduction and the pace of the programs’ implementation.

Keywords: low-carbon economy; slack-based measure; cluster analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5317/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5317/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:9:p:5317-:d:804402

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().