Sustainability Entrepreneurs, Ecopreneurs and the Development of a Sustainable Economy

Abstract

This paper focuses on investigating the role that sustainability entrepreneurship may have in engendering a shift in the practices and operations of contemporary capitalism. Sustainability entrepreneurs are increasingly seen as being in the vanguard of a shift to a new form of capitalist development that can help to address fears over global warming, climate change and their associated negative environmental impacts. Such developments can be set within a wider popular and academic discourse of ecological modernisation, at the heart of which is a relatively optimistic view of the potential for technological change to lead to solutions for environmental problems. This paper focuses on a subset of sustainable entrepreneurs termed ‘ecopreneurs’ who seek to combine business practice with sustainable development and so transform their business sectors. The paper suggests that work on sustainable entrepreneurship could be substantially improved by an engagement with the literature on transition management in science and technology studies and makes some suggestions as to how such a research agenda could be advanced.