Entrepreneurship in Service of Sustainable Development

Entrepreneurship is a dynamic force for economic change. Economist Joseph Schumpeter used the term ‘creative destruction’ to describe the way economies continually reinvent themselves through a process in which outdated ways of doing business are destroyed and replaced by the creative force of entrepreneurs. While innovative entrepreneurs usually get most of the attention for creating new business models and practices, equally important are so-called ‘imitative’ entrepreneurs who recognize a good idea when they see it and unabashedly make it their own.

At this time when a fundamental shift in the organization of the economy is needed, entrepreneurship has a central role to play. The call to create a sustainable economy is being answered by a new breed of environmental, social, and sustainability-driven entrepreneurs who are disregarding conventional wisdom about what businesses are for and how they can be run. Witness the recent burgeoning of values-based businesses that exist to serve a purpose greater than private financial gain alone.

These alternative forms of entrepreneurship need to be supported by networks of like-minded supporters that can provide opportunity for critical reflection on aims and approaches, careful examination of what is effective and what is not, a sounding board for new ideas, and a megaphone for sharing the new knowledge and practices developed. In this way the combined force of both innovative and imitative entrepreneurs for sustainable development can become a formidable presence in the economy. To this end, the posts in this section are dedicated to supporting new forms of entrepreneurship for sustainable development.