Drivers of Developing Eco-Innovations in Manufacturing SMEs from the BSR Region

The present paper presents the analysis of drivers of eco-innovative solutions development in manufacturing SMEs of the Baltic Sea Region. In the first part the authors have addressed the issue regarding the importance of developing eco-innovations in the European SME sector and presented the main premises for eco-innovations and benefit resulting from the cooperation between R&D units and possible partnerships that foster application of eco-innovation in companies. They have also included in it an example of a new project aimed at supporting eco-innovations in the manufacturing enterprises of the BSR - the project "Network of Service Providers for Eco-innovations in Manufacturing SMEs (Ecolabnet)". In the empirical part of the paper, based on the secondary research, but also on the own research of the partners participating in the project (including the authors of the present paper) the authors have presented an analysis pertaining to the results of the survey that was conducted within the Ecolabnet project, which were used in the analysis aimed at identifying the key drivers of eco-innovative initiatives among the investigated SMEs. It has been indicated that the drivers behind eco-innovations in case of European SMEs depend to a large extent on legislative measures and also utilisation of expert knowledge of R&D units.