This paper suggests that meta-organizations are important for SMEs to take environmental action. While literature on firms’ sustainability, in particularly environmental actions have been identifying the importance of environmental orientation, green capabilities and opportunities, the importance of meta-organizational membership has not been studied previously. Literature on meta-organizations, however, have highlighted the role that meta-organizations (MOs) play in sustainability transformation. That is, demanding change through self-regulation, or supporting change through education and advice or promoting interaction. Both demand and support may enhance the environmental orientation, green capabilities, and alertness to green opportunity recognition of SMEs, and may even compensate for those. By applying fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparison Analysis (fsQCA) to study 86 Finnish manufacturing SMEs, we show that indeed neither MOs’ impacts nor the company’s motivation, ability or alertness alone results in a high number of environmental actions, but rather a configuration of these factors is needed. However, lack of motivation, ability and opportunity cannot be compensated with MO impacts.
