Not so easy being green?

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) make up the bulk of modern economies. In Australia alone, there are about 951,000 small businesses in the private non-agricultural sector, employing 3.1 million people. For professional advisers and managers of these SMEs, the growing community concern for environmental issues will have quite an impact and SMEs are likely to find that ecological issues will become a big part of the daily management and strategic development of their firms. There are a few inherent problems standing in the way of greater environmental performance by Australia's SMEs. SMEs' lack of time and expertise is sometimes used as an excuse for inaction. But one way to get around this could be through outsourcing.