New Delhi: Entrepreneurs adopting environment-friendly measures in their business ventures can now look forward to additional support from investors while contributing to conservation efforts.

Investment up to $100 million will be raised for various small and medium green enterprises (SMEs) in the country by 2012 under the ‘New Ventures India’ scheme launched by the US-based World Resources Institute as part of a USAID programme.

“Since the launch of the scheme in 2006, the NVI has already facilitated investment of Rs80 crore ($20 million) into nine companies,” said S. Raghupathy, director of Green Business Centre, the Hyderabad-based environmental institute of the CII which has been carrying out the project in India.

“Small and medium enterprises who will come up with green ideas, will be provided mentoring for business development by a team of experts,” Raghupathy said.

“Selected SMEs will also be able to participate in our various investor forum programmes in which they can showcase their products or services before a network of banks and financial institutions so as to attract capital investors,” he said.

The mentoring programme will include two months training by our team of technical and marketing experts who will guide the entrepreneurs on how to expand business while maintaining green incubating infrastructure, Raghupathy said.

The training session will last till September and the Investor Forum Programme will be held in Mumbai in October.

All the SMEs will be selected by a monitoring committee who will assess the market size and scalability of products or services of the applicants before preparing the list of entrepreneurs, he said.

Water saving and management measures, green building materials, energy efficiency, employees health and other environment conservation efforts are the main aspects to be considered for selection of SMEs for the programme, Raghupathy said.