The first phase of the CURIOST Interreg Central Europe project aimed at assessing the business environment and its impact on SMEs sector in Małopolska kept us very busy during the summer time. We met with several business owners and managers both in our office and directly at manufacturing plants to learn what real challenges are in four sectors: Mechanics and Mechatronics, Packaging, Plastics and Buildings and Construction.
We talked about transformation process from linear to circular economy, gaining the market advantages in unpredictable market, possibility to design new products ready from the beginning for circullar economy and the trends for next years. Several issues are worth highlighting:
The SMEs from the region get a very good support from self governments, special economic zones and other organizations including clusters
Intelligent specialisations and market trends are recognised:
- Awareness of sustainability is at quite a good level; it just requires more incentives from the regulatory side
- The ban on using plastics is not widely recognized and enforced
- The Polish vocational education will hopefully be reactivated after many years of non-existence
- R&D units exist internally, but still need support of external experts
- New external funds (like KPO) and new European grants will certainly foster the process
- The famous Polish entrepreneurial spirit with „yes, we can do it” attitude will help to overcome market fluctuations
We would like to thank all the persons and institutions who found time in their busy daily schedule for talking with us. We will be in touch directly with enterprises to discuss next steps in supporting their transformation process to fully circular economy.