Celebrating sustainable success in the West of England

Organisations and stakeholders got together at Cassia in Bath to network and hear about the successes of the West of England Sustainable Business Support programme.

The programme run by SETsquared and the University of Bath was funded for a period of three years through the European Regional Development Fund. Its aim was to support the regional development for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) wishing to be more sustainable or organisations that are already developing sustainable technology.

Through the programme, SETsquared has engaged with more than 240 companies. Currently, 122 of those companies have completed the 12 hours of funded bespoke business support. 15 collaborative projects have been initiated between SMEs and the University of Bath, Over 20 companies established new to the firm offerings and five organisations are in the process of assessing the carbon savings of their innovations.

An independent review of the programme has estimated that it has created 165 gross jobs and 85 net jobs. It has a present net value of £13.6m over the three-year period and a cost ratio of 8.5.1 – making it high value for money which is an incredible achievement and one that the project team are very proud of.

During the course of the programme, the development of a large network of academics and organisations was also established and the celebration event highlighted those connections made and continued to be made during the evening.

Cassia provided a lovely environment for attendees to mix, mingle and enjoy drinks and tasty nibbles on a beautiful evening at the Bath riverside setting.

Laurent Perge, Innovation Advisor for the programme provided a short overview of the programme’s successes and thanked everyone who had been part of the programme – from the participating organisations, the project team, mentors and stakeholders all of who helped with the success of the programme. Serena Giaminardi, SETsquared Programme Director talked about the valuable ecosystem available through SETsquared and signposted organisations to other business support available in the region. Serena finished off by saying that whilst the Sustainable Business Programme had now finished that it was not the end of the journey and that it is important for the region that conversations continue and support on offer is utilised so innovation from the business community can continue to thrive in the area.

View the short presentation here

The evening continued with lots of networking and new connections being made.

Find out more about SETsquared’s support programmes

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