Ecopreneuring is a way of using people’s desire to serve the planet and its people to inspire profitable innovation. It is also a way for people who care about these values to use business to serve the environment and social equity in bigger ways than they could do by other means. It is a win-win way to address the issues of sustainability.
Sustainability often comes across as a series of constraints, which does not lead to enthusiasm from traditional business people. Ecopreneuring is about seizing the opportunity in the next industry to drive a wave of economic expansion The industry that will help us recover from the current economic blues is the creation of a green economy that meets human needs and supports greater happiness without destroying the ecosystems or communities on which our lives and our economy depends. It includes everything from green tech to support existing lifestyles to supporting less resource intensive ways of generating human happiness. Ecopreneuring is a business trend that more traditional business people, environmentalists and social justice advocates can all support enthusiastically.
Check out this ECOPRENEURING WEBINAR, which is full of examples of ecopreneurial success and the principles underlying those successes.
Here are the 12 principles of Ecopreneuring that can help you to take advantage of this trend toward business that is both profitable and connected to our deeper values as human beings.
1. There is money in sustainability
2. Measure resource use & impact
3. Study the whole system: make & break connections
4. Train & support ecopreneurs & their sponsors
5. Eliminate waste: waste = food
6. Solve future constraints where they exist now
7. Find a powerful leverage point
8. Invest in people, not just ideas
9. Audit the organization climate for ecopreneuring
10. Assess happiness/damage ratios
11. Bring free enterprise inside your company
12. Pursue “the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run”