The role of entrepreneurs in advancing sustainable lifestyles: Challenges, impacts, and future opportunities

This paper examines the role of entrepreneurs in advancing sustainable lifestyles (SLs) to address climate change and social inequity. It is based on empirical study of eight U.S.-based sustainable entrepreneurs, focused on reducing material consumption. While business has a key role to play, many large companies are unwilling to promote SLs as this is contrary to their current business models which are focused on growing consumption and sales. This presents an opportunity for entrepreneurial companies with innovative business models who are passionate about sustainability and social impact, and better positioned to take risks and innovate. The research examined emerging business models for advancing SLs, key success factors and challenges reported by the entrepreneurs, the social and environmental impacts of their actions, and the future opportunities for scaling up such practices. The study found that entrepreneurs are well positioned to address simultaneously environmental and social issues, however, they lack resources to effectively measure these impacts to demonstrate an overall positive benefit and strengthen their value proposition. Promoting green attributes alone is not enough to change the behavior of most consumers. It is critically important to emphasize other benefits such as a product/service quality, time or cost savings, or social impact. Social media, formal and informal sustainability networks, IT, sustainability policies, and consumer awareness are key to developing viable business models and competitive strategies that are difficult to replicate. The study found that sustainable entrepreneurs often face “costly” sustainability actions and lack the power to change „the rules of the game“; for this they need to collaborate with other key stakeholders, including NGOs, policy makers, and progressive companies. Based on the research findings the author proposes a new framework for the role of sustainable entrepreneurs as civic and political actors who not only offer innovative products and services, but help educate and influence key stakeholders, develop informal sustainability ecosystem, and thus create momentum for policy changes.