Sweden is No. 1. The Netherlands (No. 2) is coming on strong. And even mid-range performers like Estonia (No. 10), Lithuania (No. 14) and Romania (No. 27) do well at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

These are the principle findings of The 2022 Green, Digital and Competitive SME Index, an incisive ranking of national performance for Europe’s 23 million small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The Index is built around an innovative methodology with three pillars: 1) Green: How fast are SMEs moving to lower emissions and increase energy efficiency? 2) Digital: How quickly are those enterprises embracing modern technology across their organisations? And 3) Competitive: How quick are they growing and how well performing outside of home markets?

The Index was created in 2021 to accompany the European Green Deal, announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and to track SME progress on the so-called “twin transition,” the process by which citizens and businesses are moving to a low-emission, technology-enhanced future. The Index adds a third pillar, competitiveness, looking at overall national performance at SME level in company growth, job creation and the crucial task of taking “twin-transition” values into global market places.

The Index is built entirely on official data, mostly from the Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical agency. The country profiles and data sets are available for downloading in CSV format on the Github repository.

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) are 99% of European business. They are essential to attaining the ambitious goals for growth, full employment and net- zero-carbon emissions in Europe.