Chapter 1: What is Sustainable Entrepreneurship?
1.1 Defining the Core Concepts
Sustainable entrepreneurship is business-oriented activity that merges traditional entrepreneurship with a strong concern for environmental and social values. According to Schaltegger and Wagner (2011), sustainable entrepreneurship is “entrepreneurship that focuses on preserving nature, life support, and community while pursuing opportunities to create new products, processes, and services for a gain that includes economic and non-economic benefits to individuals, the economy, and society.”
While traditional entrepreneurship is centred on profit-maximization, sustainable entrepreneurship is focused on creating value in the long-run, for stakeholders, communities, and for the earth. This approach to sustainability considers every aspect of a business, from product design to management and market entry.
| Aspect | Traditional Entrepreneurship | Sustainable Entrepreneurship |
| Primary Goal | Profit maximization | Triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit |
| Time Horizon | Short to medium-term gains | Long-term value creation and resilience |
| Innovation Focus | Market trends and customer demand | Social innovation and environmental solutions |
| Stakeholder Approach | Shareholder-centric | Multi-stakeholder (employees, community, environment) |
| Resource Use | Linear: Take, make, dispose | Circular: Reuse, recycle, regenerate |
Importance of Innovation
- Sustainable entrepreneurship takes the lead in business, service and product innovation. Entrepreneurs actively seek to solve social and environmental problems, such as waste reduction or increasing access to clean energy, and in doing so, they often discover opportunities for market disruption and competitive advantage.
Key Characteristics of Sustainable Entrepreneurs:
- Vision: They have foresight into where the environment and society are headed.
- Purpose-driven: To blend personal values with business objectives.
- Social and environmentally responsible: Act ethically and inclusively.
- Long-term orientation: Rather than focus on the quick win, focus on resilience and adaptability.
- Innovation: Envision new approaches to reduce the impact of environmental degradation.
The combination of traditional business goals with a concern for the environment and society.
An accounting framework that expands the traditional focus on financial profit to include two additional dimensions: people (social performance) and planet (environmental performance).
A core practice in sustainable supply chains that focuses on cutting down on waste at every stage, from production to delivery.
