Over the past few years, environmental crisis such as global warming, pollution, ozone layer depletion, climate change and other disasters have gripped the world. The need to change and chalk out solutions to tackle these pressing issues is inevitable. The world of business, particularly entrepreneurship can facilitate and bring about positive changes.What is Green Entrepreneurship?

The connotation “Green Entrepreneurship” means a combination of entrepreneurship and environment wherein businesses and companies find solutions to protect and save the environment. The concept of green entrepreneurship is slowly but steadily emerging to address the environmental and social problems through creative and innovative ideas which not only have a positive effect on the environment but also ensure financial sustainability. Moreover, employees are becoming more environmentally sensitive and are now advocating for the ‘going green’ movement.

The Green Entrepreneur

According to OECD (2011), a “green entrepreneur is someone dedicated to making his business green and adopting environmentally friendly production technology or someone who enters a green business by actually involved in producing environmental production”. A green entrepreneur is the one who uses green practices to build a green business. Furthermore, a green entrepreneur addresses environmental and social problems through the application of entrepreneurial ideas. Thus, they foster and sustain green economy through greener production methods, providing green products and services, generating demand for them and creating green jobs. The increasing awareness of the green ecosystem has made consumers more conscious about the eco-friendly green products, further leading to the development of the green market.

Green Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Development

Sustainable development has been defined in many ways. The most quoted definition is by WCED (1987), “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. In the past, the practices followed by businesses have largely been unsustainable from an environmental perspective. Depending on finite non-renewable sources of energy such as fossil fuels, including kerosene, oil, diesel and natural gas has damaged the environment and contributed to climate change. However, the world now is more conscious and green entrepreneurs today realise that sustainability is a vital component of business strategies and relevant for the future of their business. The coming decades will see a spurt in industrialization and economic development. Resources will fall short to meet the ever increasing requirements of the people. Green entrepreneurship is the only way forward to conduct business in an environmentally and socially responsible way.

References:

• OECD (2011). Entrepreneurship at Glance; OECD Publishing: Paris, France.
• WCED (1987). Our common future. : Oxford University Press

Dr. Vrushal Khade
Assistant Professor