Background Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) make up a large part of Europe’s economy. There are 23 million SMEs in the EU, which represent 99% of all enterprises and 57% of value added. The precise contribution of SMEs to pollution and other environmental impacts is not well-known. However, it is understood that SMEs find it harder to comply with environmental legislation than their larger counterparts. A survey conducted in 2005 by the UK Environment Agency of over 5 000 British SMEs found that 75% did not have an environmental policy and only 6% had an Environmental Management System in place. A number of EU and Member State-level initiatives are encouraging local authorities to reduce their CO2 emissions and improve the sustainability of their own operations and of their localities. However, tightening fiscal pressures are causing significant pressures for efficiency savings in the delivery of public services. In many cases, these pressures are resulting in public-sector organisations adopting top-down, compliance-based sustainable procurement models, which simply put in place minimum quality standards for suppliers. These tend to favour large ‘prime contractor’ suppliers and fail to encourage genuine CO2 reductions in the supply chain. They do not incentivise improvements in the environmental performance or sustainability of local SMEs. Objectives The SSCM4ECAP project aimed to develop an innovative ‘bottom-up’ approach to Green Public Procurement. It would demonstrate the use of supply-chain strategies to improve environmental performance of local SMEs and achieve local authority sustainability targets. The beneficiary would monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of current implementation of environmental policy and legislation. It would then prepare an Environmental Compliance Assistance Programme (ECAP) for SMEs in the local authority supply chain to encourage them to implement sustainable business practices. A key tool the project would harness to achieve this would be to increase the uptake and implementation by SMEs of appropriate Environmental Management Systems (EMS), such as Acorn or EMAS–Easy. These would enable the SMEs to improve their environmental performance and increase their access to public procurement contracts. For the long-term, the project hoped to improve public-sector understanding of the impact of implementing EMS in their supply chains on the overall environmental performance of the locality. Expected results: Demonstration of a sustainable, bottom-up approach to green public procurement; 30 companies participate in peer learning around EMS; 25 SMEs gaining EMAS or Acorn accreditation; A positive impact towards achieving local carbon reduction targets.Results The project closed without starting.