Sustainability in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Regional Australia: A Framework of Analysis

There is a lack of literature on the ecological sustainability issues specific to small and medium businesses operating in Australian regional areas. Although there are some isolated studies on attitudes to sustainability in Australian SMEs, they do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the actual sustainability environmental practices in regional businesses. To fill this gap, the proposed paper aims to contribute to narrow this knowledge gap through identifying the barriers towards sustainability that can be taken up by regional SMEs to promote a transition path towards a more sustainable business model which can be applied to Regional Australia. It can be used as a basis for wider applications in other regions where also the barriers are significant. In this paper, gleaned from the relevant literature, an innovative framework is developed and presented that takes into consideration the internal and external factors affecting the adoption of sustainability principles in SMEs in regional Australia. In further studies of SMEs, the factors are tested using this framework for their validity and for establishing their links to sustainability.