Abstract
ABSTRACTEconomic, environmental, and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production have led to a rethinking and reconceptualisation of economic processes and models including the role of businesses in sustainable development. While green economies and more specifically green entrepreneurs have been identified as agents of change that can challenge the mainstream and seek to induce environmental, social, and ethical transformation of society, much research has stayed within existing models of thinking predominantly rooted in technocratic approaches (e.g. ecological modernisation and more recently transition studies). This paper seeks to offer an alternative understanding of green entrepreneurship that breaks open these discussions using an environmental justice frame that focuses on the role of extra-economic discourses in shaping the social relations of economic systems. By drawing on an exemplary case study of “just” entrepreneurship from Boston, Massachusetts, USA, the paper seeks to start a conversation around the ideas of green entrepreneurship and environmental justice as vehicles to deliver potentially broader system changes and explores both conceptual and practical aspects of green development. As such, it offers (1) evidence of a just green economy that can be realised within existing capitalist structures as well as (2) a different conceptual entry point to understanding green entrepreneurship.
Highlights
The notions of a ‘green economy’, ‘green growth’, and the role of businesses as green entrepreneurs are widely adopted and promoted as a pathway to overcome economic, environmental and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production in both research and policy documents (UNEP 2011, OECD 2013, Bina 2013)
While governments have a crucial role to play in setting a stage for an ecologically viable and socially just society, we focus here on the role of the private sector and small businesses in particular and their role in transitions towards a green economy
As illustrated by our case study below, we suggest that the environmental justice movement could be crucial in circulating just and green ideologies and in providing training and exchange of knowledge and skills to promote environmental and social innovations
Summary
The notions of a ‘green economy’, ‘green growth’, and the role of (small) businesses as green entrepreneurs (or ecopreneurs) are widely adopted and promoted as a pathway to overcome economic, environmental and social limits of the current capitalist mode of production in both research and policy documents (UNEP 2011, OECD 2013, Bina 2013). In contrast to the technocratic focus of ecological modernisation and transition studies that addresses the challenges of resource depletion and pollution proposing ecologically sustainable and economically viable business solutions (win-‐win), the presented environmental justice frame uses social sustainability as the starting point for green entrepreneurship to realize a triple bottom line (win-‐win-‐win) It does so by proposing a business model that is not driven by profit-‐maximization and rational choice but by ethical considerations, alternative norms, and values (North 2015).
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