Introduction
We have explored the role that social entrepreneurs have in the pursuit of the good. Besides social entrepreneurs, there are other types of entrepreneurs whose focus is on sustainability, ecology and environment. In this chapter, we will provide an overview of the main typologies of entrepreneurs that deal with sustainable or ecological issues. Each of these new types of entrepreneurs represents a research niche, that is evolving, and that is growing. To understand the determinants (or drivers) of the growing presence of such entrepreneurs allows us to evaluate if there is a set of conditions that ideally promote the booming of environmental and sustainable concerns among entrepreneurs. Thus, from the literature, it emerges that sometimes it can be arduous to distinguish between the different typologies of entrepreneurs. We will focus on the phenomenon of the rising of environmental concern among entrepreneurs from an academic perspective. With the growing interest in ecological practices by entrepreneurs, scholars have matured the need to distinguish the features of each type of entrepreneurs.
Drivers
Ecological and sustainable issues have progressively gained space in entrepreneurship, and they currently find a place in book texts and articles that focus on entrepreneurship (Schaper, 2002).
Academic interest for sustainable and ecological impact on entrepreneurship is motivated by many factors. Many reasons explain the rise of entrepreneurship with an environmental and sustainable orientation; the emerging framework is highly complex. According to Gast (2017), the reasons why entrepreneurs become sustainable are four: there are motives linked to regulation, to public concern, to expected competitive advantage and to top management convincement. This descriptive approach helps us to understand which are the features of this kind of entrepreneurs. The motivations can be external to the company and entrepreneurs: the presence of regulation and norms can promote entrepreneurship. At the same time, personal motivations can improve entrepreneurial orientation towards environmental concern. A regulatory framework that forces firms to become sustainable can promote green entrepreneurship.
We will describe some of the significant issues that affect the development of sustainable, environmental, green or eco-entrepreneurs, and, as a consequence, the growth of research in the field.
Changes in Corporate Culture and Society
First of all, in entrepreneurial and top management culture gain relevance, the impact that companies have on societies. The reshaping of corporate and entrepreneurial culture and the rising of awareness towards the pitfalls of decision-making have put sustainable issues under the spotlight.
At a global level, we can also observe the establishment of a link between environmental objectives and economic, social and political development (Selman, 1998). The global debate on sustainability has involved, through an empowerment process, people, and it has brought sustainability at the centre of the economic debate.
Entrepreneurs have started to conduct their businesses to address stakeholders’ concerns on sustainable and environmental problems (Mukonza, 2016).
Therefore, entrepreneurs with years of experience have begun to take into consideration—if they have never done before—the importance of sustainable practices, given their relevance to people. A category of nascent entrepreneurs took inspiration from the ecological and green concernment of some stakeholders, and they have started businesses that emphasize the importance of being sustainable (Schick, Marxen, & Freimann, 2002). Scholars debate if it is easier to develop a sustainable corporate culture from the early beginning of a firm or to implement it during the life cycle of the venture. Companies show different degree of ecological orientation: Schick et al. (2002) have provided a description of start-up orientation that offers some useful insights for examining all the companies. Corporate culture can be eco dedicated, open or reluctant. Eco-dedicated companies usually employ environmentally friendly business practices, and ecological orientation plays a vital role in a venture’s culture. Eco-open companies partially adopt eco-friendly business practices, while eco-reluctant companies choose to take an environmental orientation to accomplish to a set of rules established by institutions.
Studies show waves of the greening of the industry: for instance, the development of management systems and practices—the Environmental Management System (EMS), the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) or ISO 14001—has actively contributed to diffuse environmentally friendly business practices among companies. Some authors, anyway, are critical about the positive effect that codified green business practices can have in shaping an eco-friendly corporate culture. In particular, Schick et al. (2002) underline: “However, the positive environmental effects of EMSs are rather small (see, e.g. Dyllick & Hamschmidt 2000; Morrow & Rondinelli 2002), and the normal state of organizational practice does not match state of the art in organizational theory. EMSs are expert-based systems in which corporate environmental care is dictated in a top-down way. It is rare to find substantial changes in corporate culture arising from the adoption of EMSs. In practice, the implementation of more sustainable business measures into an existing organizational culture is often an arduous and lengthy process, resulting in conventional additional environmental conservation measures that do not reach beyond daily operating procedures” (p. 60).
We can say, that in general, top-down approaches to green practices have limited effectiveness in shaping an environmentally friendly corporate culture. The changing of corporate culture can be challenging, and it requires a high degree of interactions among internal stakeholders and an in-depth knowledge of existing culture and areas of changes.1
Therefore, we can say that environmental orientation progressively became part of corporate culture, and it helped to foster entrepreneurial awareness towards green and sustainable issues.
The Role of Empowerment
Empowerment is an overused term by policymakers: it can sound vague since it refers to some conceptual ideas. When talking about empowerment, we refer to a bottom-up approach, that is primarily based on participation and trust. The first step is the achievement of an awareness of personal choices and role within society. The establishment of a trusted network among people amplifies the pitfalls of individual actions. With a specific referral to sustainable practices and development, empowerment plays a significant role. One of the inspiring principles of empowerment is that change is interactive (Lyons, Smuts, & Stephens, 2001). Sustainable development is “the ability acquired and held by communities over time, to initiate and control development, thus enabling communities to participate more effectively in their destiny” (p. 1237). Some studies, like the one previously cited, explore the role that the empowerment process has in shaping people’s culture. Some issues, such as sustainability or social justice, can benefit from an empowerment approach since they look for a large basin of consensus and they need to convince every single person that they can “make the difference”. The relevance of empowerment is under everybody’s eyes when we think about the process of awareness and adoption of sustainable and eco-friendly behaviours by citizens. It is one of the principles that regulate movements run by young activists: we refer to the examples of Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai (Skrzypczak, Pelzer, & Süli, 2019). United Nations have recognized the role that the empowerment process has in the education of youths (Holmberg & Alvinius, 2020) with specific reference to health or sustainable practices.
Some case studies show that empowering entrepreneurs can improve sustainable practices: it is the case of female rural Amazonian entrepreneurs described by Mello and Schmink (2017) or the experience pursued by women in Gujarat (Haugh & Talwar, 2016). Yet, in our opinion, there is no doubt that empowerment has fostered the interest in green and ecological issues.
Organisations and Institutions
Institutions and policymakers have supported through their policies the diffusion of some practices that preserve resources and reduce ecological impact; there is no doubt that this approach shown by politicians has promoted entrepreneurial attention to sustainable and green issues.
We have already mentioned the role pursued by policymakers for the development of a system of norms that could improve the adoption of green practices (we refer, for example, to EMS or EMAS). Besides policies that will enhance the diffusion of environmentally friendly business practices, organisations and institutions have facilitated the growth of green or sustainable entrepreneurship. Institutions and governments had to consider the problems of social equity and resource availability: they aim to reduce social inequalities and guarantee access to resources. The importance of sustainable and balanced management of environmental and financial resources to face inequality is fully recognized not only by scholars (Shrivastava, 2011) but also by institutions and organisations who see in green entrepreneurship a mean for facing social challenges. Yet, a consensus towards green, sustainable and environmental issues progressively affirmed worldwide and gained importance in policymaking.
The above-described scenario has facilitated to entrepreneurs the transpose of some personal values and commitment (such as a green orientation) in strategy making.
Then, the availability of organisations and institution that support and promote sustainable issues has created a breeding ground for the diffusion of a type of entrepreneur who blinks the eye to these topics.
Innovation
The urgency of adopting new production and transformation practices that reduce environmental impact has nurtured the diffusion of eco-innovation.
When we talk about eco-innovation, we refer to “innovative products and process that reduce the environmental impacts”. The terms are often employed in conjunction with eco-efficiency and eco-design (Sarkar, 2013: 172). By introducing the issue of eco-innovation, our aim is not to provide an exhaustive overview of the phenomenon. Still, we want to outline the emerging of a vast amount of entrepreneurial activities that brought to innovative output in this field. In other words, the opening of spaces for eco-innovation has fostered the development of entrepreneurs whose aim is to create innovative eco-solutions.
The literature on innovation and its determinants is endless: scholars confirm that the degree of innovativeness of a country depends, among various factors, on the presence of entrepreneurs who are particularly proactive in the development of innovative start-ups. Theoretical insights find a confirmation in field research: the National Innovation System Analysis (NIS) developed by the European Commission highlights that the development of innovative systems is linked to the presence of structural economic indicators (demand for innovations, industry structure, open economy) and sociocultural institutional indicators (finance system, receptiveness to new ideas, social equity, labour market and entrepreneurial attitude).
In our perspective, innovation indeed grows where there are illuminated entrepreneurs, but we can say that entrepreneurs might find particularly inspiring those environments where the degree of innovation is high. In our opinion, areas or communities that are particularly responsive to green change can stimulate innovative green entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs who are interested in developing creative green business ideas can benefit from the presence of other start-ups who, with their innovative products or services, have contributed to boosting an orientation towards innovation. Entrepreneurs can feel a sense of consensus about the way they operate and can be motivated in pursuing their projects because they understand that the environment where they live and work is ready to know what they have to say. In other words, innovation can generate an openness in local cultures and communities for further ideas.
Personal Traits and Motivations
Much literature focuses on the role that personal traits and motivations can have in sustainable or green entrepreneurship.
In some cases, authors recognize a linkage between the nascent entrepreneurs and some social movements. In the case of ecopreneurs, for example, some scholars acknowledge the role that some social movements—more specifically ecological movements—have had since the 1970s in shaping entrepreneurs’ motivations (Beveridge & Guy, 2005). Yet, in this case, the sense of alignment between personal motivations and the values promoted by social movements influences entrepreneur’s decisions: entrepreneurs feel a sense of sharing of their convictions, and they also perceive the support that emerges from social movements.
The literature has widely explored the relevancy of personal traits and motivations in entrepreneurial behaviour. We have previously highlighted, in this book, the importance of personality and personal characteristics in the shaping of entrepreneurial behaviour.
Furthermore, the literature suggests observing the interactions between entrepreneurs’ personal and organisational qualities and their economic social and political (or technological) context. When there is an external pressure that leads to the adoption of environmental practices, it is clear that top management or entrepreneurs’ traits and motivations play a significative role in the overall degree of sustainability of their companies.
Background research has highlighted the importance given to personal traits in the definition of green or sustainable orientation among entrepreneurs (Santini, 2017). In general, scholars suggest that a pro-environmental attitude simplifies the adoption of pro-environmental decisions.
The work by Schaltegger and Wagner (2011) provides an exhaustive description of the set of motivations that characterise the different types of entrepreneurs. For ecopreneurs, the core motivation is to contribute to solve environmental problems and to create economic value. Social entrepreneurs aim to address societal challenges and create value for society, and sustainable entrepreneurs’ goal is to solve societal and environmental problems through the realisation of a successful business. We will see later, more in details, the characteristics of each type of entrepreneur.
New Types of Entrepreneurs
The growing attention to environmental and sustainable issues gave a chance to entrepreneurs to put at the centre of their choices their commitment to adopt ethical behaviours for preserving resources. Researchers gave space to new features in entrepreneurship. In the previous paragraphs, we have employed terms like sustainability, ecology, environment as synonyms; scholars have made some distinctions among the different types of entrepreneurs. Scholars have progressively built a taxonomy by observing the diffusion of specific entrepreneurial behaviours that lead back to particular typologies of entrepreneurs.
Initially, there the idea of an entrepreneur interested in pursuing sustainable or green behaviour and it was encompassing many characteristics, such as the commitment to adopt sustainable practices; the intention to preserve resources; a personal vision about green or ecological issues and its role in spreading the gospel of sustainability among people; and so forth.
As some scholars have outlined (Nair & Ganesh, 2013; Ndubisi, 2009), the initial approach to “green practices and sustainable businesses” was to consider isolated from the set of implemented practices. Then, scholars have realized the importance of understanding the linkage between practices and business philosophy and culture.
Publications started to boom, and the different characteristics among entrepreneurs slowing emerged.
In our opinion, the difficulties in distinguishing among different typologies of entrepreneurs derive from the novelty of the research field and its continuous growth.
Scholars have provided a different definition for green entrepreneur, eco-entrepreneur, environmental entrepreneur and sustainable entrepreneur. For each of the categories, we will provide a description and an overview of emerging insights from academic research.
There is a multitude of terms and definitions, such as ecopreneurship, environmental entrepreneurship, green entrepreneurship and sustainable entrepreneurship. It is hard, sometimes, to distinguish between the different typologies.
Green and Environmental Entrepreneurship
What characterises this type of entrepreneurs is to be green: he/she makes its business green or gets into a green business.
Green and environmental entrepreneurs are, to our opinion, very similar. As we will see later in this book, there is a tendency to implement neologisms that identify research niches. The term “green” associated with the word entrepreneur is more general than the name “enviropreneur”.
A first attempt to define what green entrepreneurship is can start from the analysis of green businesses and green activities. OECD shows two approaches for the definition of green entrepreneurship: “it could be defined in terms of the technology used for production in any sector of the economy, or in terms of the sector’s firms are active in, in which case our attention is restricted to parts of the economy producing specific types of output. The former is sometimes referred to as a process approach in defining green business, while the latter as an output approach” (pp. 24–25).
The above-provided definition doesn’t include ethical issues or personal motivations.
In the definition released by the European Commission, a green entrepreneur provides ecological awareness to the firm.
Scholars define green entrepreneurship as “a method for managing natural resources” (Allen, 2008). As we can see, the definition is extensive.
A solution to provide some less generic definition could be to highlight the activities that green entrepreneur should perform. In other words, a green entrepreneur can be someone who pursues green activities. A new debate opens on the understanding of what a green business is and the OECD report on green entrepreneurship2 provides useful insights: according to the report, are green all those entrepreneurs who operate in companies in the so-called pollution management fields (production of equipment and specific materials for air pollution control, wastewater and solid waste management, environmental monitoring, analysis and assessment, and so forth); in the cleaner technologies and product field; or in the resource management field (production of equipment, technology, specific materials, services, construction and installation for water supply, indoor management, renewable energy plant and so forth).
A reflection upon the management of natural resources by green entrepreneurs leads to further inquiries: “how natural resource-dependent communities, which often deal with persistent poverty, can harness the initiative of local entrepreneurs to create sustainable, lucrative businesses” (Allen, 2008). Once again, it emerges how definitions are fluid: the borders of green entrepreneurship inevitably fade into sustainable entrepreneurship.
Yet, the term green can be employed in a relative sense or an absolute sense (Isaak, 2017; Walley & Taylor, 2002): some businesses are green since their foundation—and they show an “absolute” implementation of the term green—and activities that turn green. At the same time, there are entrepreneurs who since the beginning are characterised by a strong commitment to environmental practices and others who became “green” after they recognize the relevancy of being green. The motivations that boost in entrepreneurs an ecological concern can be multiple: they can feel institutional pressure, or they can perceive the importance of their role in the changing process of the society, or they can recognize the emerging commercial opportunities. In any of the above-described cases, entrepreneurs decide to become green.
According to the literature, ecopreneurs are founders of green business (Isaak, 2017; Walley & Taylor, 2002). Following the emerging insights from the research, we can define as green entrepreneurs those who conduct green businesses; thus, among the classifications of green companies, scholars—see, for example, Walley and Taylor (2002) or Holt (2011)—emphasize the one published by Eastwood, Eaton, Guyer, and Stark (2001). The authors outline eleven different types of green business that go from pollution control and energy conservation to research and education.
This kind of entrepreneurs has a notable environmental motivation that inspires their choices and behaviours.
The model proposed by Walley and Taylor (2002) describes what the main activities and characteristics of green entrepreneurs are. The authors distinguish four types of entrepreneurs: innovative opportunists, visionary champions, ethical mavericks and hoc enviropreneurs.
In this taxonomy, we note that the authors employ the term enviropreneurs to indicate a unique typology of green entrepreneurs. In this case, we refer to accidental green entrepreneurs, who are inspired by personal relations and network to implement green practices within their business. What are they seeking is financial value, and in their view, being green can help in achieving superior financial performances.
The innovative opportunist in response to regulation pressure adopts green practices; they are animated even by a high economic orientation. The motivations are entirely different from those that inspire a visionary champion entrepreneur: in this case, the entrepreneur, since the foundation of its business, adopts sustainable practices. A singular character is the ethical maverick. Ethical mavericks adopt sustainable and green practices because they are part of a network (of friends or relatives) or they have had some experiences that have changed their vision of the world. The pressure of regulation is soft in ethical mavericks who tend to create alternative-style start-ups.
Ecopreneurship
There are many definitions of ecopreneurship. In general, ecopreneurship combines two words: ecological and entrepreneurship, and the introduction of the term dates back to the ecological movement. This is one of the reasons why ecopreneurs are often confused with ecological activists. As for other typologies of entrepreneurs, it is challenging to find a unique definition of ecopreneurship. We are dealing with a complex issue, and since there is a lack of academic consensus about what constitutes an entrepreneur, it is even harder to define what ecopreneurship is (Santini, 2017). As for all the other typologies that we have previously outlined and that we will see forward, the problems are the same. Kirkwood, Walton, Kirkwood, and Walton (2010) suggest that ecopreneurs are entrepreneurs who found new businesses based on the principles of sustainability.
Ecopreneurs focus on environmental performance rather than on social performance (Schaltegger & Wagner, 2011), and “they pay less attention to sustainability performance (that combines social and environmental issues), which is seldom perceived as a core business goal” (Santini, 2017: 4). Ecopreneurship can be defined as “entrepreneurship through environmental lenses” (Schaltegger, 2010: 78). Some new traits of ecopreneurs emerge from the work by Schaltegger (2010), who highlights that one of the ecopreneurial purposes is to achieve a considerable market share: accordingly, to this perspective, ecopreneurs are highly motivated to reach the widest audience as possible. This, in our view, is aligned with the traits of activism in ecopreneurs, as previously outlined. Yet, the description provided by Schaltegger (2010) solves the dilemma of choosing between making profits and pursuing personal inspirations. In some works, we find traces of the discussion “choose profits or motivation” (Linnanen, 2005), but, by focusing on commitments, others highlight the importance of spreading the message of ecology to the masses: those entrepreneurs see in ecology one of the core inspiring principles of their companies. To pose at the centre of their businesses, such principles lead entrepreneurs to implement ecological practices (Santini, 2017; Schaltegger, 2002).3
When we talk about ecopreneurship, we are used to employing synonyms, such as sustainable or green orientation instead of ecological orientation. Yet, sometimes, the borders between different definitions seem to fade. When analysing the literature, anyway, we observe that the implementation of this neologism is growing up to the point of introducing other specific sub-categories. It is the case of “shecopreneurship”, introduced in 2011 (Poldner, Branzei, & Steyaert, 2011). In other words, the literature is still growing and evolving.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Another type of entrepreneur is the sustainable entrepreneur.
We can provide a definition that basically, follows the others: a sustainable entrepreneur—or sustainopreneur—is an entrepreneur who is motivated by sustainable purposes.
Given the broad concept of sustainability that includes several perspectives (the ecological one, but also the social and economic ones), a sustainopreneur can operate on various levels that touch the different spheres of sustainability.
Scholars have investigated the niche of sustainable entrepreneurship. The work by Sarango, Santos, and Hormiga (2018) provides a state of the art of background research on sustainopreneurship as a research field.
Sarango et al. (2018) underline that the initial focus of the research was on environmental problems and solutions, and it evolved to include all the dimensions of the concept of sustainability.
Many factors contribute to define entrepreneurial sustainability orientation: there is no doubt that individual factors play a pivotal role in determining companies’ sustainable goals (Kuckertz & Wagner, 2010; Schaltegger & Wagner, 2017).
Sarango et al. (2018) describe what the main aims of a sustainable entrepreneur are: “(1) be motivated by identities based on both commercial and ecological logics; (2) prioritize commercial and/or ecological goals; and (3) approach stakeholders in a broadly inclusive, exclusive, or co-created manner to acquire financial resources through crowdfunding, because sustainable entrepreneurs do not seem to be ready to respond to the challenges or to take any risks by investing in green business, but also that the government and educational institutions do not recognize their own role and the need of supporting the development of green entrepreneurship” (p. 11).
Some Considerations
We are witnessing to the growth of some research niches in the field of entrepreneurship. In some cases, as for entrepreneurship or ecopreneurship, we see that research is at an embryo phase, but it is growing: we observe a shift from the implementation of generic terms to specific definitions that tend to delimit some particular phenomena.
We can say that a hierarchical order can organize the typology of entrepreneurs presented in this chapter. The concept of sustainable entrepreneurship seems more extensive, and it includes all the other typologies of entrepreneurs described in the section.
As literature grows, scholars have dedicated attention to make further distinctions, and specific categories have risen. The birth of smaller research niches goes along with the growth of entrepreneurs’ orientation towards specific sustainable practices.
Future research should investigate the dynamics of the above-described research niches. Will they survive in the future or will be incorporated by the field of sustainable entrepreneurship? In our view, as long as entrepreneurs will show interest in green and sustainable business practices—whatever their motives are—it is reasonable to suppose that research niches will grow. It is essential to underline that, as outlined by some scholars (Santini, 2017), there is a lack of field research. When we have explored the literature, we have observed that most of the studies aimed to provide classifications, taxonomies or indicators for understanding what the distinguishing traits of each type of entrepreneur are. We see some confusion about who is who; this is, in our view, because the object of study is still in progress. It is hard to say how many years does it take to a research niche to get its definition and development. Yet, we have learned from the previous sections of the book that entrepreneurship is still looking for its legitimacy, so we must be patient and observe these promising research niches.