An entrepreneurial model of economic and environmental co-evolution

Abstract

A basic tenet of ecological economics is that economic growth and development are ultimately constrained by environmental carrying capacities. It is from this basis that notions of a sustainable economy and of sustainable economic development emerge to undergird the standard model of ecological economics. However, the belief in hard environmental constraints may be obscuring the important role of the entrepreneur in the coevolution of economic and environmental relations, and hence limiting or distorting the analytic focus of ecological economics and the range of policy options that are considered for sustainable economic development. This paper outlines a co-evolutionary model of the dynamics of economic and ecological systems as connected by entrepreneurial behaviour. We then discuss some of the key analytic and policy implications.

Exploring the Direction on the Environmental and Business Performance Relationship at the Firm Level. Lessons from a Literature Review

“…Therefore, we can confirm previous authors [41,58,61] in the hypothesis that the methodological approaches to study this relationship are evolving, as "empirical data in search of a theory" [108].…”

“…Lankoski [57] proposed an integrative synthesis of knowledge of the relationship between corporate responsibility activities and economic performance and pointed out that different corporate responsibility activities produce different economic output. Potts et al [58] advanced the "co-evolutionary" model in which the dynamics of economic and ecological systems are connected by the business behavior. Orlitzky [59], with a comprehensive literature review of corporate social responsibility, discussed how different disciplines influenced different empirical results in the relationship between environmental, social and financial performance.…”

Re-imagining the growth process: (co)-evolving metaphorical representations of entrepreneurial growth

“…capable of lasting indefinitely (Kallis 2007). Co-evolutionary metaphors find human economies diverging markedly from a sustainable relationship with natural systems by damaging their integrity, health and component species (Potts et al 2010). Since these systems collectively represent natural capital that provides resources (e.g.…”

Conceptualizing strong sustainable entrepreneurship

“…The growing prevalence of environmental stress, and the rise of issues such as massive biodiversity loss, eco-system collapse and global climate change, is certainly evidence of this. Hence, EE's main project has been that of trying to conceptualize the interaction between economic and ecological systems (Potts et al, 2010). Georgescu-Roegen (1971), for instance, underlined the physical metabolism of the economy by discussing entropy and economic transformation − introducing the second law of thermodynamics to economics.…”