SMEs contribute substantially to global employment and economic growth. Yet constraints such as lack of capital, human resources and knowledge capability have rendered SMEs operationally incapacitated to report on environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements. In this policy paper, we first highlight SMEs’ key challenges as they try to recover from crises post-COVID-19. Next, we propose policy actions and recommendations to address such challenges by discussing the effectiveness of best practice frameworks that will help SMEs in sustainable strategy development. Additionally, we propose better policy frameworks to enable SMEs to report on ESGs and contribute to specific SDGs.