South West Objective 1 & 2 Programmes – Investment in the environment sector, evaluation study

The Brief: In March 2007, we were commissioned by the South West Objective 2 Programme Environmental Theme Partnership to undertake an evaluation of the investment made through the Objective 1 & 2 programmes in the environmental sector.

The aims of the study were to assess:

  • The size of the sector;
  • Delivery of support to environmental businesses through the programmes;
  • The effectiveness of the different interventions in terms of outputs and business perception;
  • The Needs of the Sector; and
  • How should environmental businesses be supported through Competitiveness and Convergence?

The methodology included the following broad elements:

  • Defining environmental businesses;
  • Collection of data from 6 projects from Objective 1 and 5 from objective 2;
  • Qualitative survey of businesses; and
  • Analysis of data.

The key findings addressed the following questions:

  • The size of the sector;
  • Delivery of support to environmental businesses through the programmes;
  • The effectiveness of the different interventions in terms of outputs and business perception;
  • The Needs of the Sector; and
  • How should environmental businesses be supported through Competitiveness and Convergence?

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