The Centre for Sustainable Design (CfSD) at University of the Creative Arts

Sustainable Supply Chains through Innovation (SUSCIN) was led by CfSD between 2009-2012. SUSCIN aimed to build capacity of SME suppliers of eco-innovative products/technologies/services in the South East through a range of business support activities. The project’s value was £407,678 and match-funded by ERDF/SEEDA. Direct outcomes of SUSCIN included:

• 566 SMEs and a total of 1235 delegates attended events/engaged in 1:1 consultancy
• 204 SMEs received 12+ hours of business assistance resulting in improved performance in 21 SMEs
• £2.3M reported new business won as consequence of participation in SUSCIN
• £0.99M reported net increase in gross value added (GVA)
• 3.27FTE were created and a potential 139.35FTE new jobs identified amongst participating SMEs
• 17 businesses increased turnover of 5% resulting from new/improved products
• 46 SMEs tendered for public sector supply chain contracts (£1.9M reported business won)
• 53 new R&D links were facilitated between SMEs

The Centre for Sustainable Design ® (CfSD) www.cfsd.org.uk at University for the Creative Arts (uca) www.ucreative.ac.uk

Professor Martin Charter, Director, The Centre for Sustainable Design ®, UCA mcharter@ucreative.ac.uk