High Impact Eco-Entrepreneurs From

Around the WorldBy Misi Cummings and Daniella Porreca

What is an Eco-Entrepreneur

An Eco-entrepreneur creates environmental & social value through a profitable company.

Goals

- Our Project started out as a way to see how eco-entrepreneurs from different countries were able to create successful companies and what were the key success factors and obstacles encountered.

Map of Eco- Entrepreneurs

How we conducted our study

-We started off by contacting eco-entrepreneurs we found through the Impact Hub network

- We then asked a series of questions to get a better idea of why they started their company.

Questions Included in the Survey

● What motivated you to start your company?● How many years have you been operating?● How has the company changed over the years?● What are the biggest challenges you've faced?● Where do you see your company in the next five years?● How does your company maintain an eco-friendly work

environment?

Questions continued ● What communication strategies do you use to reach the public● Who do you think has the biggest influence on environmental progress● What environmental issue do you feel needs to be addressed most

urgently? ● Do you think companies can intervene?● What are the key factors for success or failure for your company? ● What sets you apart from other environmental companies? What are your

strengths and weaknesses as company?

Main questions

● What motivated you to start your company?● What are the key factors for success or failure for your

company?● How does your company maintain an eco friendly work

environment?● What are the biggest challenges you've faced?

Why did we ask these questions?

The survey was put in place to see how their company ran financially, economically, and to gain a perspective on how they viewed the environment and their impact on it.

Analysis

We found that most people started their company because they saw something in the environment that they cared about and saw that it needed to be fixed.

The majority of new start up companies found that it was often hard to compete with the big companies that people have grown to know and trust and they needed to start networking with customers and other companies .

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During the interview we found that there were three main problems: finance, having people care about their product, and networking.

A collection of the newer companies seemed to be having trouble obtaining financial backing or starting to get clients.

Getting people to care

Numerous amounts of these companies were struggling with the fact that people weren’t educated about the subject. Because people were uneducated in these subjects it made it hard for companies to succeed.

Finance

Having people that are uneducated about the subject makes it hard for them to get financial backing on their projects (eco-conscious investors).

Networking

Many of the companies have been able to overcome these struggles and have been able to grow their branch into a bigger company. By networking they are able to get help through external sources.

Social Media

Social media and networking go hand in hand, through our research we found that a lot of companies are relying on social media to get their company's name out there. They use things such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin

Work Environment

We additionally found that many of these companies have been able to maintain an eco-friendly work environment.

They have been able to maintain this work environment by using less paper, recycling, biking to work, and by working in a coworking space.

This survey allowed us to get a better insight on all the different companies analysed. Although they had different goals, they were all trying to achieve a great product and have a positive impact on the environment both through it and their internal operations.

Conclusion

Overall we were able to learn new information about different eco-entrepreneurial companies from all over the world and their key success factors and obstacles. If we had more time we would have been able to consult more companies. However we feel that it is important that this project is able to continue and gain greater depth.

Companies who participated:

ADAPT youth innovation, Hany El Miniawy

BOULD, Shane Gring, http://www.bebould.com/

Erdbeerwoche GesbR, Annemarie Harant, http://www.erdbeerwoche.com/

GUTTS, Edward Goossens, http://gutts.nl/

Impact Space, Ravi Kurani, http://www.impactspace.org/

myNewEnergy, http://www.mynewenergy.ch/de/

This Side Up, Lennart Clerkx, http://www.tsutrade.com/

Ubiquity University, http://www.ubiquityuniversity.org/

Zero Waste Jam, Evelina Lundquist, http://zerowastejam.com/en/