An integrated approach towards sustainable entrepreneurship - Experience from the TEST project in transitional economies

The challenge how to assist enterprises more effectively within industrial hot spots of the Danube River Basin in order to meet environmental standards while enhancing their competitiveness was addressed by the project Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technology (TEST). New, integrated approaches were developed and found to be effective in fostering organizational learning and helping to ensure implementation of the desired changes at all levels of the corporate management pyramid. This paper describes the TEST approach and results by presenting: -Theoretical framework for an effective and efficient integration of the tools of preventive environmental management. -Approach, methodology and toolbox to address all levels of the enterprises. -Empirical results obtained through the implementation of the TEST in 17 enterprises of the Danube Region. The TEST approach has proved to be an effective learning process for addressing complex challenges that the companies had been facing. It helped them to improve their economic and environmental performance by integrating the bottom-up and top-down learning perspectives. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.