“Just” ecopreneurs: re-conceptualising green transitions and entrepreneurship

ABSTRACT

Economic, 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.

KEYWORDS:

• Just entrepreneurship
• ecopreneur
• environmental justice
• innovation
• urban sustainability

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the interview participants for their time and contribution and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. A special thank you to Charlie Lord for his insights and feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript. An early draft of the paper was presented at a workshop on “Transitional green entrepreneurs: Re-thinking ecopreneurship for the 21st century” at Kerstins Udde, Sweden on 3 June 2014.

ORCiD

Julia Affolderbach http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9520-7033

Notes

1. Although South Korea (80.5%) and China (37.8%) have larger proportions of their overall stimulus devoted to green spending.

2. Proponents of decroissance or de-growth like Georgescu-Roegen and Latouche have centred their analysis of resource extraction and growth around environmental justice and social equity concerns.

3. A mezzanine real estate investment is a conventional investment where the lender does not receive direct collateral, but, if the borrower fails to pay back the loan, the lender acquires a percentage of ownership. Given that this is real estate, the lender would get a portion of the building should the borrower fail to pay.