What the 2025 SME sustainability survey taught us

The second edition of «Corporate Environmental Sustainability: Reports and Achievements», published in 2025, devoted a full chapter to a survey of sustainability practice among small and medium-sized companies in Qatar. Hawkama International ran it under the direction of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, with Dr. Ahmed Abdullah Al-Faqih supervising its design. Fifty companies responded, 40 small and 10 medium, and the data was analysed in SPSS.

Fifty is a modest sample, and the chapter does not claim to speak for every company in Qatar. But the patterns are clear enough to be useful to any manager, and they are the starting point for the national survey of 2027.

Who answered

Services dominated the sample at 66%, followed by retail at 16% and construction at 12%. This is mostly a picture of service businesses rather than heavy industry, which matters when reading the energy and waste figures.

Strategy: half the companies have no plan

Thirty-six percent of companies said they had a formal sustainability strategy and 16% a partial one, while 48% said they had none. In 30% of companies no one was assigned to deliver on sustainability, and only 10% employed a dedicated sustainability officer.

Yet 86% said they assess their compliance with sustainability regulations regularly. The contrast is telling: companies keep up with what is required of them, but few turn that into a plan of their own.

What is not measured is not managed

The most revealing results are about measurement. Thirty-two percent of respondents did not know how much waste their premises produce, and 30% did not know what share of it is recycled. Forty-six percent recycle nothing or no more than 1% of their waste.

On energy, only 6% had installed energy-saving equipment; 90% had not. Seventy percent do not assess the environmental impact of their supply chain, and 66% do not invest in green technology, against 8% who invest continuously and 20% who do so occasionally.

Priorities: waste first

Asked about their top environmental priorities for the next three to five years, 44% chose waste reduction and recycling, 16% energy and carbon footprint reduction, and 10% biodiversity and environmental awareness. Twenty-six percent named no priority at all.

Barriers: demand before money

Money was not the first obstacle. The most cited barrier was weak customer demand for sustainable products and services (34%), followed by limited knowledge or expertise (28%), lack of financial resources (14%) and insufficient government support (6%).

Asked what support would help, companies put customer awareness and demand first (22%), then training for employees and suppliers (16%), government policy and support (10%), and financial support and incentives (8%). Notably, 38% named no form of support at all, which the chapter reads as a possible sign that companies are unaware of the options available to them.

It may indicate a lack of awareness of the available options, or a lack of clarity about what would be most useful to them. (The survey chapter, translated from Arabic.)

Reading the numbers together

Taken together, the results describe one pattern. Companies see sustainability as important, keep up with compliance and put waste at the top of their list, but the everyday management tools are missing. Close to half have no written strategy, about a third do not know their waste volumes, and in roughly another third nobody owns the topic. None of these gaps needs a large investment. They need a management decision and regular follow-up.

What this means for your company

• Start by measuring. Electricity and water bills, waste weights from your collection contractor and purchase records already exist in most companies, and they are enough to build a baseline in weeks.
• Name one owner. It does not need to be a new post, but everyone should know who follows the file and who reports to management.
• Write a one-page plan. Three priorities, three indicators and a review date beat a long strategy that never gets used.
• Do not wait for demand. A company with its data ready is in a better position when a large customer or a lender asks about its environmental performance.

The 2027 national survey extends this work to around a hundred companies, and its results will be announced at the launch conference of the book’s third edition on 25 March 2027. If your company takes part, its reality becomes part of the national picture, and the findings on stage will describe companies like yours.