Impacts of Entrepreneurs on the Environment

Entrepreneurs play an important role in promoting the environment. The products and services they offer could potentially harm or heal the environment.

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, the UK government made the commitment to “encourage and promote the development of a ten year framework of programmes….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 the UK 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 out the program.
One such program that enlists the participation and help of UK entrepreneurs is the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste Programme (BREW). In this program, the UK Government introduced the Landfill Tax, aimed to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfills and at the same time help them find ways to do this.

It was found out that some 272m 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.

Environment Sustainability

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. Environment sustainability offers a way for business to operate in a more efficient manner at the same time make positive contribution to the community they belong to.

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.
Environmental Leadership

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 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.

Of course it would be practical to expect that some environmental practices are easier to adapt and will be very profitable, while other environmental practices will take a little more getting used to, require more hard work and may not make as big an 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

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 achievements 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 and 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.
Environment sustainability, leadership and eco-efficiency -- all these would help entrepreneurs leave positive marks in the environment they revolve in. After all, preserving the environment would preserve the business in the long-run.
Source:

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Sustainable Consumption and Production, Database online. http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/publications/uk-strategy/index.htm

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