Small business, big impact: a united effort at London Climate Action Week 2025

Dear Climate Proofing SMEs campaign collaborators, Allies,

The COP30 Presidency has issued a powerful call for a global "mutirão" – a united effort – Together, channeling the spirit of "mutirão", actors, initiatives, and coalitions are being called on to accelerate collective impact to COP30, to accelerate full implementation of GST and NDCs.

And it is clear that small businesses, local innovators, and entreprises are at the heart of this movement. Small businesses play a critical role in the just transition that delivers equitable human and economic development.

We are delighted to welcome COP30 Climate High-Level Champion, Dan Ioschpe, who is committed to driving momentum for climate action which achieves socio-economy development, on the road to COP30 in Belem, for which the role of SMEs is critical. We are also delighted to welcome COP30 Special Envoys, to drive action across their respective sectors and regions.

Over the last few months, and through collective input and consultation with partners, we have defined three areas to maximise collective impact this year. Together, channeling the spirit of "mutirão", we are now calling on you to deliver against our collective headlines on the road to COP30.

“The Climate-Proofing SMEs campaign is a catalyst, moving beyond aspiration to empower small and medium-sized enterprises to be climate leaders. I'm deeply committed to ensuring SMEs have the resources and support they need to implement green solutions. This collective effort, a true mutirão, will ensure they don't just survive, but thrive in the transition to a resilient and sustainable economy, driving vital socio-economic development we urgently need", said Dan Ioschpe, COP30 Climate High-Level Champion.

"The campaign will focus on empowering SMEs to thrive in the green transition – boosting climate literacy, access to finance and resilience. I am in particular calling on large corporations, global institutions, and regional actors to increase support and capacity building for SMEs in their value chains. I also invite SMEs themselves to start their climate journey today and join the thousands future-proofing themselves and their communities by joining the Race to Zero and Race to Resilience", said Nigar Arpadarai, COP29 Climate High-Level Champion.

Campaign Calls to Action

1) Supply chain engagement: By COP30, we want to see at least 150 large businesses across key sectors of energy, nature, and agribusiness doubling down on the benefits of strong, climate resilient and decarbonised supply chains by actively supporting SMEs to take climate action through capacity building assistance and financial incentives. We are calling on large businesses to provide capacity building and financial support to SMEs across their supply chain to take climate action.

2) Access to Finance: By COP30, we want to mobilise major financial institutions including Multilateral Development Banks, Development Financial Institutions, commercial lenders (commercial banks, non-bank lenders and micro finance institutions) and venture capital funds to increase their financing to SMEs in emerging economies.

We are excited to amplify the insights, innovative solutions and best practice examples on SME finance to inspire, activate and accelerate action from multilateral and regional development banks, (national) commercial lenders, and SMEs, and to catalyse an investment sprint for SMEs.

Specifically, we are calling on:

• Commercial Banks to actively finance SME green transitions by offering tailored green financing (loans, guarantees) and supply chain financing (backed by large businesses as backstop guarantors), providing accessible technical assistance and streamlining application processes and documentation.

• Multilateral Development Banks to increase concessional lending and provide risk guarantees and blended finance instruments support to the commercial lenders. Assist in capacity building of commercial lenders towards understanding of de-risking and blended finance instruments and alternative risk management mechanisms

• Businesses to engage with the SMEs within their supply chains on climate action, provide technical assistance and financial support, and invest in green SME innovation.

• SMEs to leverage the financial support available to them and reap the opportunities of green economy transition

3) Capacity Building: We aim to achieve ‘30 by 30’- at least 30,000 SME users empowered with access to tools to calculate their carbon footprint, prepare for sustainability reporting, understand sustainable business practices and build resiliency by COP30 through Climate Proofing SME campaign collaborators.

We are calling on global, regional and local organisations to accelerate their capacity building support and arm SMEs with fit-for-purpose guidance and tools to help them to embed climate in their business practices, across key topics and geographies.

Through this capacity building support, we look forward to seeing SMEs taking further action by either joining the already 9000 SMEs in Race to Zero, particularly the SMEs from emerging markets and developing economies; or for the SMEs that are already part of the Race progressing their Net Zero transition, seizing the positive opportunities of the transition and building resilience to impacts.

Next steps

As our campaign collaborators and allies, we are counting on your support - to collaborate for change by unlocking enablers and accelerating action at the local, regional and global level.

We invite you all to work together over the next few critical months and join us at the key moments throughout the year - including regional climate weeks, including London Climate Action Week, and Climate Week NYC and at COP30 - demonstrating leadership with tangible proof points of implementation progress.

We are confident that this year, together, we will make a real difference in empowering and enabling SMEs in their transition to a resilient and green economy.