Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship

In recent years our understanding of corporate sustainability has moved from exploitation to exploration, from corporate environmental management to sustainable entrepreneurship, and from efficiency to innovation. Yet current trends indicate the need for radical innovation via entrepreneurial start-ups or new ventures within existing corporations despite difficulties with the financing and marketing of such efforts. Presenting both conceptual and empirical research, this fascinating book addresses how we can combine environmental and social sustainability with economic sustainability in order to produce innovative new business models.

The international cast of contributors addresses the wide range of issues in the balance between growth and environmental concerns. The first five chapters discuss various aspects of sustainable entrepreneurship. This is followed by two chapters that look at innovation within existing firms. Innovation is not successful until it finds a customer, so the two chapters that follow delve into the marketing aspects of business-to-consumer and business-to-business settings. The book closes with a broad discussion of the evolution and future of the research agenda into the intersection of sustainability, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Academics, students, business professionals, and NGOs will find this volume enlightening and useful.

Edited by Rolf Wüstenhagen, Good Energies Professor for Management of Renewable Energies and Director, Institute for Economy and the Environment, University of St Gallen, Jost Hamschmidt, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, Sanjay Sharma, Dean and Professor of Management, Grossman School of Business, University of Vermont, Canada and Mark Starik, Senior Lecturer, Sustainability Management Program, University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, Madison, Wisconsin, and Contributing Faculty Member, College of Health Sciences and Public Policy, Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US