The state of play in disseminating LCM practices in the Western Balkan region: the attitude of Serbian SMEs

Purpose This paper aims to depict the current state of play in the use of life cycle management (LCM) in Serbia, as the largest Western Balkan economy, and to recognize suitable channels for distributing the concept among regional manufacturers and businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It tries to answer two principal research questions: What is the level of awareness/acceptance of life cycle thinking (LCT) among local industries and service providers? Is there any critical level of interest in the subject that could justify the transfer of knowledge regionwide at an institutional level? Methods The pilot study testing the state of play for broader LCM awareness is briefly presented and discussed. An internet-based questionnaire was designed to reveal the general acceptance of life cycle assessment (LCA)/LCM principles and distributed to 320 enterprises and public institutions throughout Serbia. The data obtained were categorized into clusters and subjected to descriptive, summary statistics by a standard statistical software package. Archival research data were analyzed upon a review of available literature and compared to the obtained results in order to support and/or explain the findings. Results and discussion There is a dependence between membership in the Chamber of Commerce and the perceived significance of LCM for business development. Also, there is dependence between a company’s membership in Cluster House and willingness to be trained in LCM/LCA. Both tendencies should be attributed to the important educational role that those umbrella organizations have performed in recent years. Their networks should be further utilized in the dissemination of the LCM approach in the region. The survey revealed a significant lack of awareness about the subject among the representatives of different industrial sectors where SMEs operate. The results and conclusions presented in this paper to a fair extent support findings disclosed in other works related to the industrial and/or environmental performances of SMEs in the EU and elsewhere. LCA/LCM principles and procedures remain widely unknown, or at least seldom applied in Serbia. The vast majority of manufacturers do not fully recognize the potential of LCA practices for the substantial improvement of their products. The environmental consequences of growing consumerism threaten to hit the weak economies of the Western Balkans hard, unless some level of LCM awareness is achieved. The int