The Victorian Government's 2005 Victorian Greenhouse Strategy Action Plan Update included funding to develop a project to improve energy efficiency in small-medium sized enterprises (SMEs).  Specifically, the project was to investigate "Energy Performance Contracting" as a means to promote energy efficiency investment in this sector.

The Department of Sustainability and Envrionment (DSE) provided grants to ICLEI Oceania to develop an innovative pilot project in 2006/07 and to extend it in 2007/08.  This project, known as Energise Business, engaged 114 SMEs across four municipalities over two years.

Energise Business was designed with the aim of creating an on-going service that would be widely applicable to local governments and their communities of SMEs.  Instead, the project revealed that energy performance contracting is recommended for only a small but significant group of larger medium-sized enterprises. 

ICLEI Oceania suggests that a number of key differences between SMEs are material to the delivery of energy efficiency projects.  The project learnings suggest that small-to-medium enterprises are so diverse that energy efficiency projects should rarely, if ever, be directed to SMEs as a whole.

ICLEI Oceania has produced an extensive report detailing the lessons learned through Energise Business.  This report is available below.