THE SUSTAINABLE SIDE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Entrepreneurs can deliberately align company activities with environmental protection.
The world is beset by socioeconomic and environmental challenges. In pursuing profit, for example, businesses have degraded the natural environment to a large extent. Along with pollution, ozone depletion and deforestation, there is poverty, unemployment, criminality, and youth restlessness to contend with. These challenges undermine the path towards sustainability.
According to the World Commission on Environment and Development, sustainability is a concept and attitude in development that refers to being able to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. These efforts are anchored on three pillars: economic, social, and environmental.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, there is heightened awareness and concerted effort on the part of business to contribute to sustainability. One of the ways by which business exerts an influence to sustainability thrusts is through entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a process by which businesses create value through innovation. Value created is usually economic in nature. However, as a result of being sustainabilityoriented, entrepreneurship generates social and environmental value in addition to economic value. More and more companies are becoming active as prime movers of sustainable development.
Depending on the goals that motivate entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship can be sustainabilityoriented. Entrepreneurs decide on the focus to be given to economic, social, and environmental goals. Thus, they can help create solutions to environmental problems. Entrepreneurs can incorporate environmental goals and implement best case practices in daily operations. They can deliberately align company activities with environmental protection. They can innovate to address environmental concerns and outperform competitors at the same time.
Entrepreneurship can remedy many worldwide challenges by driving economies, generating employment, encouraging product development, and engaging the vulnerable sectors of society, including women and youth. By offering environmentally and socially superior products, entrepreneurs can serve the mass market and society at large by contributing to the sustainable development of the economy.
More specifically, in the light of rising environmental problems and the need to consciously reduce energy consumption, pollution and wastes, entrepreneurship has also been called upon to generate environmental value while generating economic value to contribute to a more sustain-
able future. Businesses have heeded the call, starting with achieving efficiencies in resource use through the minimization of emissions, effluents, and waste.
To be environmentally responsible, entrepreneurs can establish green businesses or green-green businesses. In green businesses, entrepreneurs introduce environmentally responsible practices as they realize their favorable impact on cost, innovation, and markets. Most companies that practice environmental responsibility are green businesses. A green-green business, on the other hand, is designed to be green in its products and processes from the inception of the business. Body Shop is an example of a green-green business.
Many companies carry out entrepreneurial activities that benefit the environment. They commit themselves to minimizing the impact of their operations on the natural environment. Their environmentally responsible practices are as varied as the nature of their businesses is, but they all heed the call to reduce energy consumption, pollution, and wastes, evident in the progress they have made after incorporating best practices in their operations. These innovations can be considered process-related.
In Missouri, the Green Supplier Network, composed of 20 small and medium manufacturers, has committed itself to sustainability goals such as the reduction of hazardous waste, energy and water consumption, and pollution prevention and control. In the Philippines, companies engaged in the Green Philippines Islands of Sustainability (GPIoS) Project generate profit by simultaneously increasing resource efficiency and minimizing environmental impact through well-designed capacity-building progress along with technical consulting and coaching. They have consciously reduced emissions, effluents, and waste to varying degrees.
Business success can be achieved by operating in an environmentally responsible manner. Performance is linked with environmental responsibility. Economic value generated is in the form of savings, investment, and payback. Innovations to conserve energy and water and reduce hazardous and non-hazardous wastes oftentimes lead to substantial savings and less adverse impact on the environment. These innovations indeed create sustainable value for the firm.