Entrepreneurs have enormous impact on the environment. The enterprises that they build could either be harmful or beneficial to the environment. Enterprises use products, such as plastics, services and chemicals which could potentially harm the environment. Great care, therefore, must be taken in carrying out their enterprise.
During the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, UK Government made this commitment "encourage and promote the development of a ten year framework of programmes%u2026.to accelerate the shift towards sustainable consumption and production".
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) aims to promote economic growth within environmental limits. SCP is one of the four critical areas of priority for UK action in achieving sustainable development. SCP according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs promotes:
Better products and services, which reduce the environmental impacts from the use of energy, resources, or hazardous substances
Cleaner, more efficient production processes, which strengthen competitiveness, and
Shifts in consumption towards goods and services with lower impacts.
Thus, we can glean from the environmental thrusts delineated by the UK government that entrepreneurs are important in carrying the program out.
One such program that enlists the participation and help of the UK entrepreneurs is the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme (BREW).
In this program, the UK Government introduced the Landfill Tax. Landfill Tax is aimed to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill at the same time help them find ways to do this.
It was found out that some 400m tonnes of waste each year are generated in UK. This rate is growing by 3% each year. Industrial and commercial waste comprises 20% of total waste and more than half of this wastes goes to landfill. But landfill or incineration does not promote sustainable long term solutions for dealing with large scale wastes. Government instituted the Landfill Tax to encourage businesses to lower the levels of business waste.
The impact of entrepreneurs then in promoting sustainable development is huge. That is why, it is important for entrepreneurs to find ways to protect the environment in the course of conducting their entrepreneurial activities.
Sometimes, environment and entrepreneurs seem to be at odd with each other especially in their objectives. But the truth is a business does not necessarily harm the environment in order to be profitable.
Environment sustainability then offers a way for business to operate in a more efficient manner at the same time make positive contribution to the community they revolved in.
A sustainable future is made possible by the combined efforts and contributions of all individuals, organizations and levels of government. Entrepreneurs must balance their economic progress with commitment for preserving environment.
Environmentally friendly business practices as a matter of fact would be beneficial to the entrepreneurs business in the long run.
How can entrepreneurs protect the environment? How do they work hand in hand with preserving the environment at the same time increase profits?
These are tricky questions which seem quite impossible. But the entrepreneur has a number of options that they could explore and utilize that could contribute to environment sustainability. Among these options are:
Using renewable resources and energy. This does not only allow the entrepreneur to protect the environment but at the same time improve opportunities of development for future generations;
adhering to conservation practices which in turn save money for the business and can be incorporated into business with relative ease;
encouraging new ideas and embracing innovation that will enable the business, employees and customers to take advantage of new and sustainable technologies;
buying and developing environmentally friendly products and services helps protect the environment and can create new market opportunities; and
understanding the potential impact your business operation can have on the environment is important to the local community and your liability exposure.
Another way of attaining sustainable development is through the practice of environmental leadership by entrepreneurs. To put it simply, environmental leadership is collective efforts of the individuals particularly the entrepreneurs in ensuring a healthy environment for future generations.
The idea of environmental leadership in business does not require that entrepreneurs will prioritize environment compliance over business profitability.
Environment leadership, however, means that entrepreneurs have to find ways to be more efficient and utilize or come up with new products or services that will be more environment-friendly at the same time make their business profitable. In short, business profitability must work hand in hand with environmental stewardship. One does not need to compromise the other in order to achieve such balance. Both factors have to be present to achieve maximum impact.
The Center for Small Business and the Environment in Canada declared that entrepreneurs of small and medium-sized enterprises are well fitted and in the position to encourage a culture of environmental leadership and enumerated the following reasons:
they represent a huge talent pool filled with the kind of opportunity, drive, creativity, skills and experiences needed to address a wide range of environmental challenges;
they are rooted locally and have a greater likelihood of understanding environmental issues as they may affect their communities, workers and families; and
they have traditionally led the way when it comes to efficiency and innovation.
Of course it would be practical to expect that some environmental practices are easier to adapt at the same will be very profitable, while other environmental practices will take a little more getting used to, require more hard work and may not make a bigger impact as the others.
These are the realities that entrepreneurs must accept. That is why, it is imperative that to attain the most impact and achievement in environment leadership, priorities must be set, advantages and disadvantages must be weighed before embarking on the project.
Eco-Efficiency is another important framework that entrepreneurs could introduce in the course of conducting their business. Eco-efficiency is the development of a highly effective infrastructure for the ecological operation of business. This could be one of the greatest and most rewarding achievement of an entrepreneur.
The idea of eco-efficiency revolves around the following:
delineates practical and systematic approaches in setting and attaining environmental performance goals in business;
promotes a management philosophy which helps businesses become more competitive, more innovative and more environmentally responsible;
aids entrepreneurs create products and services at the same time lower resource use, waste and pollution in the process of doing business
works in promoting businesses that prevent and minimize waste.
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