Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause

I have suggested a definition of a concept that was created around year 2000, and emerged from the nineties vocabulary social entrepreneurship and eco-preneurship;

Sustainopreneurship.

I stumbled upon the term in 2003, immediately embraced its anticipated meaning, but following a dissatisfaction of its suggested meaning in the sources I found, I wrote a first draft of a definition that was first presented online in 2004 (in conjunction to starting the related blog), then developed further and presented in an article at a conference in the spring 2005, that later turned into a chapter in a book that was published in September 2006, an anthology and peer-reviewed conference proceeding with 36 different authors, a book named "Science for Sustainable Development - starting points and and critical reflections".

Later on, I followed up that article with the tentative definition in the conference article/book chapter and putting it to a test, and contrasted it towards tales and stories in an auto-ethnographic style to see if the conceptualization of the phenomenon could work as an explanatory term by the "experienced first-hand reality", in a research approach called enactive research. And it passed the test. The result is fully and freely downloadble public-domain from the swedish academic digital archives;

"Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause: Conceptualizing Entrepreneurship for Sustainability"

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The definition suggested is as follows;

Imaginary Oxford English Dictionary, 2009 ed.

Sustainopreneurship, n.

1. Deployment of sustainability innovations: Entrepreneurship and innovation for sustainability.
2. Short for sustainability intra-/entrepreneurship.
3. To focus on one or more (world/social/sustainability-related) problem(s), find/identify and/or invent a solution to the problem(s) and bring the innovation to the market by creating an efficient organization. With the (new alt. deep transformation of an old) mission/cause-oriented sustainability business adding ecological/economical/social values and gains, with a bias towards the intangible - through dematerialization/resocialization. The value added at the same time preserving, restoring and/or ultimately enhancing the underlying utilized capital stock, in order to maintain the capacity to fulfil the needs of present and coming generations of stakeholders.

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The definition of sustainopreneurship, need to be highlighted with three distinguishing dimensions; all three are simultaneously present in the interaction it reflects;

1. Sustainopreneurship consciously sets out to find and/or create innovations to solve sustainability-related problems.

The conscious mission that guides the action is to deliberately find practical and innovative solutions to problems related to the sustainability agenda. This is the main key to distinguish this category of entrepreneurial activity and behaviour labelled sustainopreneurship from generic entrepreneurial activity. Typical areas from the Sustainability Agenda (ref. e. g. UN's Agenda 21, The Millennium Declaration and Plan of Implementation from World Summit on Sustainable Development) are;

• Poverty
• Water and Sanitation
• Health
• Education/illiteracy
• Sustainable production- and consumption patterns
• Climate change and energy systems
• Chemicals
• Urbanisation
• Ecosystems, biological diversity and land use
• Utilisation of sea resources
• Food and agriculture
• Trade Justice
• Social stability, democracy and good governance
• Peace and Security

2. Sustainopreneurship means to get solutions to the market through creative organizing.

The line-up above sets demands to acquire and maintain a fundamental attitude when this list of sustainability-related problems is compiled. It is of core importance to take the agenda as entrepreneurial challenges - to view problems as possibilities, obstacles as opportunities, and resistance as a resource, whatever nature of the resistance. If the solution is generated by creativity, equally important is to take it to the market in a creative and innovative way. Thinking and doing outside the box! In this dimension, there is nothing that really differs from the generic entrepreneurial description, but this comes natural since sustainopreneurship is a conceptual extension and development from the social phenomenon named entrepreneurship, and thus inherits one of its perceived key dimensions, 'entrepreneurship as creative organizing'.

3.Sustainopreneurship in process adds sustainability value with respect for life support systems.

The awareness that the (economic) market is an embedded sub-system in the "socio-sphere" that in turn is a part of the 'bio-sphere', is made explicit. This awareness naturally and self-evident makes the sustainopreneurial team to maximize harmony with life support systems in the process: acting according to the epitome of the generic definition on "sustainable development" in the business venturing, where sustainable development was defined by WCED UN, World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) "Our Common Future", fulfilling needs of the present generations with respect to the needs of present and future stakeholders.

Distinction: Sustainability vs Sustainable Entrepreneurship

One common unclarity is that there is no distinction made in between sustainability vs sustainable entrepreneurship. From this point of view sustainability entrepreneurship as in the concept sustainopreneurship; is the use of entrepreneurial activity in a determined action orientation towards solving a sustainability-related problem with business organising as a means to solve the problem(s) - 'business with a cause': To turn business activity from a part of the problem to a part of the solution.

Sustainable entrepreneurship then is viewed as just a generic entrepreneurial process that takes in consideration the boundaries set by sustainability through-out the entrepreneurial process, the how aspect, and do not address where to and why: The destination, the purpose, the aim of the venture. The strategic intent and the business idea in itself are not related to sustainability per se, sustainability is just an "attachment" to the entrepreneurial process when we talk about sustainable entrepreneurship. The second and third dimensions mentioned above are represented, but not the first.

Sustainability entrepreneurship, in contrast, takes as its root of existence and strategic aim to solve a sustainability-related problem, using creative business organizing as a means to do so. This means that all three dimensions are simultaneously present. In summary: To bring a sustainability innovation to the market through creative organizing with respect for life-supporting systems in the process - entrepreneurship and innovation for sustainability.

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Based on real-life experiences and a need to communicate this (inter)action

As mentioned, the main source for this conceptualization is not primarily academic literature. The conceptual development is rather energized by an intention to find a vocabulary to describe the action where we did not have a name for what we did in a more "abstract" level (i. e. starting a company dealing with sustainability profile clothes directly imported from developing countries, launched greater in a future to come with financing secuted, branded Ignition®, and taking part of a future revenue to fund and develop sustainability innovations to speed up transition towards a sustainable world through and with business creation as a means).

So in order to easier describe what we "did" and "doing", we fully embraced this concept, and I have developed it further after I found it by serendipity by the year 2003 (a call for papers notification to a conference mailed on a mailing list, described in detail how it went about in my Master Thesis as well).

The company first spark, its "ignition" was in January 2000, shared in the self-ethnographic storytelling in the Thesis mentioned - a core to develop further and use to popularize and proliferate sustainopreneurship in idea, education/teaching/learning, applied interaction and inspiring future sustainopreneurial ventures!

Keep track of the development - Blogs, Virtual Communities and Groups

The related Blog is the Main Stream to help facilitate the process to turn sustainopreneurship to mainstream in the business world, and a community has been activated at Ning - Sustainopreneur's Café. That's the main conversation spot for the subject. There is also a group at Facebook called Sustainopreneur's Square - the main broader announcement spot besides the main blog. On LinkedIn there is an associated group for those with strongest interest in Sustainopreneurship, called Sustainopreneur's Directory - search LinkedIn Groups Directory for tag 'sustainopreneurship' and you'll find it. There is no real interaction there, more than a created directory for interested parties, and a place to connect with others peer to peer sharing interests - i. e. qualitative intentional networking.

Planned future activities during 2008 are within formal research and applied interaction, see next section.

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Future research and publishing beyond - a book chapter

A research article outlined future research at the 13th international conference ISDRC, arranged by International Sustainable Development Research Society, in the track Entrepreneurship - a Key to Sustainable Development? When conducted, following this suggested outline with appropriate documentation, it will build a core of well-anchored learning to popularize for the greater audience.

The conference article has undergone further development, and an edited and contextualized article will be published in a book in mid-September 2008; "Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause. The promise of creative business organizing for sustainability", in a book covering enterprising in local and regional development in the related research program over at Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research, www.fsf.se. This book will be published in conjunction with the FSF arranged "entrepreneurship week" 15-19 Sep, in Sweden at different cities in a tour.

The main event is the two-day conference held at Tylösand, Halmstad: "Globalization, Innovation and Entrepreneurship- the 4 th International Entrepreneurship Research Award Winner Conference". The book is edited by my academic mentor and tutor, this year's winner of the FSF-NUTEK 2008 International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research, Prof Bengt Johannisson of Växjö University/Jönköping International Business School, and Prof Åsa Lindholm-Dahlstrand of Halmstad University. Working title for the book is "Bridging the functional and territorial view of entrepreneurship and regional development", where the founder's contribution is named "Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause. The Promise of Creative Organizing for Sustainability", and is focused on a gross list of emerging research questions to deepen the understanding for and knowledge of sustainopreneurship.

A paper has also been accepted with a narrowing down of the topics towards a specific prospect of future research to be presented at 14th ISDRC conference in India in September, 21-23, 2008, dealing with a systematization of the core of Sustainopreneurship, i. e. a proposed research to do a taxonomy of sustainability innovations. The abstract will not be turned into a full-fledged article now, and will not be presented at the conference due to unsufficient funding of that work, but serves as a pointer of what attracts interest and worth pursuing further insight into in future research when taking the gross list of research questions turned into a net list of questions e. g. suitable to write up a PhD Dissertation on the subject.

In both academic and popular context more will come, e. g. some eBooks highlight certain aspects, such as facilitating factors, tools, enablers and application areas for sustainopreneurship, together with appropriate areas and domains for sustainopreneurship applied, and then a final book including all above, with a working name "Sustainopreneurship - Business with a Cause. The what, why and how of creative business organizing for sustainability".

The research to increase the understanding of Sustainopreneurship is organized by iÆREAS, an interim association towards the constitution of Association for Enactive Research, Education and Application of Sustainopreneurship, planned 2009, with the homepage at http://iaereas.weebly.com. The publications above - the book chapter from FSF and the ISDRS conference article - have some abstracts available for download at http://iaereas.weebly.com/publishing.html. To track development of this publishing line, subscribe to my Blog to see it coming in real time.

Full text document and the "sustainopreneurship research library" is found over at Scribd Group - Sustainopreneurship Research.

Sustainopreneurship spread and applied: SEEDS Innovation Fund, Ignition Communications AB, SLICE Services and Publishing

One of the main areas to channel the lessons from this research is to have proliferation and diffusion of Sustainopreneurship in Action through SEEDS Innovation Fund, see http://www.seedsfund.com.

SEEDS Innovation Fund will generate its means mainly through the coming Ignition Communications AB, that will be formed as soon as it covers its financial need of $40 000. It will own the brand and registered trade mark of Ignition.

The conceptual work practically applied, and sharing lessons together with inspiration for present and future sustainopreneurs, I also channel primarily through affiliated strong action through my company SLICE Services and Publishing found at www.slice.nu.

SLICE stands for Sustainopreneurial Lecturing Inspiration Consultancy and Events.

The freelancing in the name of SLICE in the virtual world, through "hereworking" or ki-working, is done at the Ki-work online web worker market place. For the focused offerings, related to empowering sustainopreneurial teams, and also to utilize social media for identity making and personal/team collaboration and efficiency of individuals and the business project, see my Ki-profile at http://www.ki-work.com/ki-profile/andersabrahamsson.

For all my actions related to the conceptual core of Sustainopreneurship, see http://actionmap.andersabrahamsson.info.

For all my actions in real-time traced through my online presence in various streams and feeds, see my aggregated so-called lifestream over at http://friendfeed.com/andersabrahamsson.

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- Natural SEO: Top Linked among millions of hits on Google, Yahoo, Windows Live Search and AllTheWeb

The dedication and committment to the subject gives top results among the biggest search engines.

The blog and other links is currently on top ten on Google Search with search on the generic terms "Sustainability Entrepreneurship" taken together - out of X million+ hits, e. g. the blog.

- The concept in itself - a goal to hit one million in Google by 2008!

The explicit goal through all activities here, is to have the term "sustainopreneurship" to pass...

...one million hits on Google, by the end of the year 2008.

All this work follows the path, and is a part of fulfilling my main intention (see my personal quote in my HubPages profile and at http://www.andersabrahamsson.info/), where it is believed that a proliferation of sustainopreneurship can be a powerful and strongly efficient shortcut to reach global sustainable prosperity through multi-local and inter-local linked sustainopreneurial ventures in communities everywhere.

• Google Search on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

• Yahoo Search on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

• Windows Live Search on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

• AllTheWeb Search on Sustainability Entrepreneurship

If you want to help me with the reach out of this concept and the One Million Hit Pledge of Sustainopreneurship, do link to this page from your Blog, Web or other online resources, as well as conversation in forums etc.

This hubpage including the conceptual summary and main links associated, with the approved definition of sustainopreneurship, is reached through http://www.sustainopreneurship.info for quick reference and link spreading easy mode.

Peace,

Anders

PS. For applied area of action and some brilliant case studies from areas such as micro finance, solar energy and rural internet connection in the emerging economies, see the HubPage"The Hot World - A Whole World Online?". DS.