As the project aims at catalyzing green ventures in a few communities in Armenia, the intent is the success of the businesses with a strong focus on environmental component. This may further have a spill over effect changing the thinking paradigm in the communities and bring behavioral change both among the businesses and the customers.

If successful, the project might be replicated through the application of the results in other communities, as well. This might particularly refer to the three business plan schemes that will be developed based in the research and be publicly available for anyone interested in that type of a business.

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The project is designed with a strong expertise in the core. The key product of the project builds on the philosophy of open source and envisages ?democratization? and free dissemination of consulting products designed through the project. Thus, 3 business models will be posted online and widely disseminated by the project, which allows anyone to start a business, benefiting from the research and consulting results produced by project experts. These models include all stages of startup businesses, providing an entrepreneur with the market research, feasibility study, business plan, as well as accounting, marketing and legal support during the implementation.

The project team plans to carry a robust information campaign in target provinces to reach out to social groups. This will take both social media engagement and offline work through local branches of the organization. SME Association will use its social media channels which account for more than 5000 online users. The offline engagement will be done by the 5 major branches of SME Association, as well as its 560 members widely spread throughout the country.

The target group includes women from communities identified during the inception stage of the project. The secondary target group will involve a wider range of women, extending to other regions of Armenia too. A series of trainings on entrepreneurship and environmental literacy will be conducted for this second group of beneficiaries to ensure inclusion and wider geographic coverage of the project. The level of women?s involvement in economic life of the country continues to be significantly low in Armenia. According to the official statistics, women are poorly represented in all branches of government, as well as less active in economy. Only 54.3% of women are economically active as compared to 72.6% of men. Country Gender Assessment by Asian Development Bank (2015) states the socioeconomic factors limit women?s participation; in particular, women lack the resources and opportunities to develop their skills. There is long recognized need among development organizations and NGOs for working with women in building their capacity to act, as well as with the general public to recognize the value that women can add to economic and social life. The project is designed to recognize important gender dimensions of its work at regional level and at the local community level.

The target of this project is women, both young and more experienced. The project activities will capacitate the target groups through a range of business and environment related training, provide financial assistance to either establish business, or support the exiting ones.

There might not be direct ?influence? on governing bodies at different levels, but the project may indirectly bring changes to the business environment culture.

This project aims at i) mapping the environmentally concerned business opportunities in selected geographical areas, ii) identifying women-led businesses in those areas and equipping them with knowledge, skills and financial support to more effectively perform as business entities. In addition to capacitating project beneficiaries, the core staff of the SME Association who are engaged in the project, will enhance their knowledge in environmental issues and challenges that will further contribute to the environmentally-oriented behavior and activities both within the organization and beyond.