About SEP

Enhancing environmental sustainability and climate resilience are becoming increasingly important for sustaining Bangladesh’s economic progress. Bangladesh ranked 173 out of 180 countries on Yale’s 2016 Environmental Performance Index. Globally, Bangladesh ranks among the countries with the economy most at risk due to the impacts of climate change. The rapid growth of manufacturing, dominated by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), has led to a massive increase in natural resource use and degradation and to growing air, soil and water pollution. Reducing negative environmental externalities has been identified as a priority area for Bangladesh to continue progress towards reducing poverty and inequality. Embarking on a greener growth pathway would provide major benefits for Bangladesh in terms of increased productivity and innovation, access to new markets, generating of public revenue, and reduction of vulnerability to shocks.
In the microenterprise sector, attention to environmental sustainability and climate resilience is limited due to a mix of capacity, market accessibility, knowledge and financial barriers. While the statistics show a high contribution to GDP from microenterprises, there is little evidence to show that microenterprises are growing in a sustainable way. The performance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) is limited in terms of revenue earnings, machinery use, capital-labor ratio, and growth of value added, except labor productivity in some instances. Negative externalities, such as pollution, health impacts, or loss of productivity, are typically not reflected in costs, thereby reducing the incentive for microenterprises to shift to more sustainable goods and services, or collectively invest in better environmental technologies and infrastructure.
The Sustainable Enterprise Project (SEP) support microenterprises in manufacturing clusters with a focus on areas that are environmentally stressed and/or vulnerable to climate change and natural disasters. The project aims to support microenterprises through environment friendly investments in the manufacturing sectors to promote environmentally sustainable technologies and practices among microenterprises in environmentally vulnerable areas, induce changes in the micro-lending ecosystem, and support to the adoption of basic operational safety norms in project-supported enterprises.
To analyze the present situation of imitation gold jewelry’s economical sustainability, environmental issues, various hazards, and market linkage, international market Shishu Niloy Foundation is implementing the sub-project of Imitation Gold Jewelry sub-sector called “Promoting environment friendly enterprise through quality production and marketing of imitation jewelry” at the field level under the SEP project.