Environmental Entrepreneurship – Why Is It Important?

This week at the Inaugural Startup Business Festival we celebrate, appreciate and deliberate on all things Environmental Entrepreneurship from 1 – 5 November 2021. 

Innovation and hunger to generate profit are not the only key perpetrators of the environmental challenges, but they also play vital role in effectively addressing them. In an attempt to resolve environmental challenges, it is not only big business’s role, but entrepreneurs too have been noticed.

Environmental entrepreneurship, also known as “ecopreneurship” or “green-entrepreneurship, can simply be summarised as the process of entrepreneurship applied in order to create businesses that solve environmental problems or operate sustainably.

Entrepreneurs operating in this sector are instrumental in economic development due to their contribution towards elimination of unemployment, poverty as well as environmental challenges. They provide environmentally friendly products, service, clean technology assistance and many other offerings which contribute positively to the economy.

Some of the most critical debates of today are protecting the environment and leaving a clean environment to future generations. It is evident that entrepreneurship can help resolve the environmental problems of global socio-economic systems. It is crucial for continuous development of green entrepreneurship with the viewpoint of increasing societal awareness towards environmental changes and promoting it. This will in turn bring about the importance of pertinent issues such as conservation of energy, recycling gaining importance, promoting reusability and the development of the economy.

While the tendency to consume more products creates environmental damage, many businesses try to raise awareness of the consumption of natural resources. What sets apart Ecopreneurs from other traditional entrepreneurs is that not only do they want to make profit, but they want to create a business model that is environmentally conscious and creates social value. Protecting the environment is one of the most important issues of our time. Therefore, it is important to support Ecopreneurs to increase their number.

Key Sustainable Consumption and Production Principles

1. improving quality of life without increasing environmental degradation, and without compromising the resource needs of future generations
2. reducing material / energy intensity of current economic activities
3. reducing emissions and waste from extraction, production, consumption and disposal
4. applying life-cycle thinking, which considers the impacts from all life-cycle stages of production and consumption process