Business Development, Innovation and SMEs Completed

ESG Forum – Fuel4Future

Croatian Employer`s association - CEA ·Croatia

€146k

Grant awarded

Innovation, Research, Education and Competitiveness

Programme

6 September 2023

Signed

About this project

Croatian Employers’ Association is a voluntary, non-profit and independent employers’ association that protects and promotes the rights and interests of its members. The main activities of the CEA are to identify, protect and promote the economic and social rights of employers and workers, conduct a harmonized economic, social and development policy, to encourage, conclude and apply collective bargaining agreements and to bring them into line with economic, social and development policies. The Project The idea of the project is to support members of the CEA, especially SME’s, in implementing ESG in their business environment. More than 90% of Croatian employers are SMEs with human and financial resources that are not enough for covering topics like ESG. As companies across sectors embrace the philosophy that social and environmental issues should be of equal concern as profits — the profile of ESG has become elevated. All three elements of ESG: environmental, social and governance are seeing increasing scrutiny. CEA needs to build its own capacities to be able to help employer's – CEA members. CEA members will receive training on ESG from Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise, Oslo (NHO). Upon building its own capacity, CEA will be able to provide training and build business skills in area of ESG to its members during the project (on workshops, but) also after the project (on web). Increasing the capacity of CEA will enable it to achieve long lasting value that will enable dissemination of knowledge for a longer duration. This will make CEA possible to execute various follow-up activities which would increase the added value of the project itself long after the activities within it have been executed.

Bilateral cooperation results

The project established strong bilateral cooperation between the Croatian Employers’ Association (CEA) and the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), enabling knowledge transfer on ESG implementation. Joint activities included workshops led by Norwegian experts and ongoing mentoring, which provided Croatian SMEs with tailored support in integrating sustainable practices. This collaboration enhanced the CEA's capacity to assist its members effectively, ensuring sustained engagement in ESG initiatives beyond the project’s duration.

Project partners

Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise Donor project partner· Norway

Croatia country profile Other projects in this programme Project website