Chapter 5: Slovenia

(continued)

5.4 Profile of the Environmental Business Sector

The Slovenian environmental business sector is comprised of more than 250 companies that provide a wide range of environmental services and technologies. While the majority of environmental companies are quite young - 52 percent were established after 1990 - more than a third are older companies established before 1980. The age breakdown of environmental companies is shown in Table 5.6.

TABLE 5.6: AGE ENVIRONMENTAL COMPANIES
Year of establishment	% of Respondents

After 1992	20%
1990-1992	32%
1980-1989	13%
Before 1980	35%

Almost all of the environmental businesses founded after 1990 are privately owned. As shown in Table 5.7, of the 121 companies surveyed, 57 percent are privately owned, 25 percent are state owned and 10 percent are state-owned companies in the process of privatization - a sign of the positive development of the privatization process in Slovenia.

TABLE 5.7: OWNERSHIP STRUCTURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL BUSINESSES
Ownership	% of Respondents

Privately owned	57%
State owned	25%
State and privately owned	8%
In process of privatization	10%

In general, surveyed companies are outfitted with all types of modern office equipment. Telephones, personal computers, fax machines and printers are standard equipment in the firms surveyed. As Table 5.8 shows, all of the companies are equipped with phone lines. Interestingly, more than half of the surveyed businesses use cellular phones, and a third have access to e-mail.

TABLE 5.8: OFFICE EQUIPMENT USED
Office Equipment	% of Respondents

Telephone	100%
Personal computer	91%
Fax	91%
Printer	85%
Photocopier	73%
Modem	61%
Cellular phone	52%
Mainframe computer	43%
E-mail	38%
On-line services connection	25%
Telex	16%
GIS computer	11%

Most of the environmental companies in Slovenia are small enterprises. As Table 5.9 shows, more than 50 percent of survey respondents employed fewer than five full-time workers, and more than 80 percent of the companies employed fewer than 20 people full time. Only a tenth of the survey respondents were large companies that employed more than 50 full-time workers in their environmental business activities. It is estimated that more than 1,000 people are employed in the environmental business sector in Slovenia.

TABLE 5.9: EMPLOYEES INVOLVED IN ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITIES
Number of Employees	Full-time Workers	Part-time/ Contractors

Up to 5	57%	-
6-10	15%	69%
11-20	10%	20%
21-50	8%	7%
More than 50	10%	4%

The surveyed companies reported total annual environmental revenues exceeding USD 87 million, approximately 40 percent of the estimated market. However, several companies would not provide detailed financial data, and as a result the reported total comes from only 95 of the 121 companies surveyed. A breakdown of companies based on annual revenue is shown in Table 5.10.

TABLE 5.10: BREAKDOWN OF COMPANIES BASED ON REVENUES FROM ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITIES IN 1995
Revenues (USD)	% of Respondents

Less than 100,000	34%
101,000-250,000	20%
251,000-500,000	10%
501,000-1 million	13%
1 million-5 million	19%
More than 5 million	4%

The environmental technology market in Slovenia is geared primarily toward providing technical services, which accounted for 40 percent of total revenues in 1995. As shown in Table 5.11, the next major source of income is the manufacture of environmental technologies, which accounted for 26 percent of revenues. Testing and monitoring accounted for 15 percent of total revenues.

TABLE 5.11: BREAKDOWN OF REVENUES BY ACTIVITY
Activity	% of Revenues

Technical services	40%
Environmental technologies	26%
Testing, monitoring and laboratory	15%
Other	19%

Analysis by media shows that water and wastewater activities and waste-related activities each generated 30 percent of total revenues. This was followed by air-related and energy-related activities, which generated 9 percent and 7 percent of revenues, respectively. Non-media specific revenues (e.g. consultant activities that include more than one media, like EMS, EIA, environmental planning, industrial safety and noise control, etc.) amounted for 24 percent of revenues. The breakdown of revenues by media is shown in Table 5.12.

TABLE 5.12: BREAKDOWN OF REVENUES BY MEDIA
Media	% of Revenues

Water and wastewater	30%
Waste	30%
Air	9%
Energy	7%
Other (not media specific)	24%

With regard to foreign cooperation, 13 percent of the environmental businesses operate a joint-venture with a foreign partner. As expected, the top three countries from which survey respondents found joint-venture partners were Austria (four joint-ventures), Germany (three joint-ventures) and Croatia (two joint-ventures). The main foreign languages spoken by business representatives are English, Croatian, and German.

REC * PUBLICATIONS * EMERGING ENVIRONMENTAL MARKET 2 * SLOVENIA