How a social practice approach could improve government-supported decarbonisation initiatives for small and medium-sized enterprises

The ongoing scramble to reach net-zero has prompted many nations globally to implement targeted support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to decarbonise and enable participation in the just climate transition. Using social practice theory and Maréchal and Holzemer's ‘grips’ framework as conceptual lenses, we consider the role and efficacy of policy interventions in driving the SME net-zero transition. This study examines the available evidence on how government-supported initiatives, particularly within a UK case study context, aid SMEs to understand, measure, and act on carbon emissions. Policy efforts to support SMEs towards decarbonisation are evaluated through a systematic PRISMA literature review of academic literature and by using a novel approach towards a systematic grey literature review. Review findings reveal that: 1) overreliance on evidence from quantitative surveys, which are largely decoupled from interventions, and small-sample qualitative approaches has limited our understanding of the impact of government-supported initiatives' progress towards decarbonisation; 2) despite limited evidence of the efficacy of recent intervention design, decarbonisation initiatives continue to rely on a narrow suite of information and behaviour change tools, rather than robust, practice-orientated interventions to support a diverse SME population; 3) disconnection between policy design and research design discourages medium- to long-term evaluation of the impact of interventions; 4) by using the ‘grips’ framework as a conceptual guide, this study offers a reimagining of government-supported initiatives as systemic rather than individualistic to support SMEs to embed decarbonisation activity within everyday practices, in order to create enduring, meaningful progress towards net-zero.