Alternativas de financiación para las Pymes: caso particular de las inversiones en mejora de la eficiencia energética

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In recent years, there is more talk than ever of the importance of SMEs in the European business and, more specifically, in Spanish. The deep economic crisis that we have been experiencing, since 2008, has affected significant especially for Small and Medium Enterprises, which have seen how, in addition to the sharp drop in activity and demand, traditional financing channels , which have been used for years, are now closed. This situation has led to the closure of many businesses and forced to restructure and reduce the size of many others. It also represents an added difficulty for those who decide to undertake, and for companies that are undergoing expansion and growth have been hampered because they have found it almost impossible to finance new projects. Right now it is very important that SMEs are aware of any alternatives that are available to them to finance and how they can access them. There are financing schemes other than traditional banking, which sometimes are not used by simple ignorance or because so far the companies had covered its financing needs through regular channels and were not interested in them. Since all institutions and organizations, both public and private, are making an effort to promote and publicize these financing alternatives. Some of these sources allow the company to capitalize their balance sheets without going into debt and achieve the reliability necessary for developing your business. Moreover, numerous studies indicate that the energy saving potential of SMEs allow many of them to significantly reduce their operating costs and increase productivity. Sometimes simple modifications are that the employer can take with their own capital, but in other cases it is more complicated investments that require external financing. There is great ignorance about the economic and environmental benefits of this type of measures that both the European authorities and the Spanish have been articulated in recent years several policies, plans and even specific funding lines to promote them. Yet efficiency projects that have materialized are far from their true potential. The main reason is the lack of funding and the demand commercially viable, financial institutions, guarantees similar to those of any other loan regardless of the special characteristics of this kind of operations. It is, therefore, a third-party financing is an alternative formula to use their own resources or bank debt. Is that the risk of investment and operation of the facility are made by a company other than the customer to recover its investment through savings achieved after the implementation of the measures.