Making Ecopreneurs: Developing Sustainable Entrepreneurship (2nd ed.)

Recent years have revealed an increasing interest in one aspect of entrepreneurship and small business management: environmental sustainability and, particularly, environmental entre‐ (or, for short, eco‐) preneurship or the more established term, sustainability entrepreneurship^[1]. Ecopreneurship and the ecopreneurs who start and grow such businesses are the theme of the second edition of this edited book by Michael Schaper. The first edition (Schaper, 2005) was a fairly pioneering collection of chapters on what is probably best now described as a “young” field (Parrish and Tilley, 2010, in this volume)^[2]. Some early literature on ecopreneurship includes books by Blue (1990) and Isaak (1998), as well as journal articles (such as Anderson, 1998) up to more recent research such as this volume, Kirkwood and Walton (2010), Parrish (2010), and Thompson and Scott (2010). Indeed, it has been the wider research area of environmental business (as distinct from entrepreneurship), e.g. Eaton and Stark (1999), that has received more attention. The environmental sector or the “green economy” has been identified in a number of regions as a key generator of employment (for example, Eastwood et al., 2006). But it is start ups, rather than existing firms adopting “green logic” (Isaak, 1998) that arguably could generate the most jobs if we adopt a Birchian perspective on small firms' job creation potential (Birch, 1987).

The structure of the book, which is divided into three discrete but related parts, is particularly effective and relies upon a fairly established and reliable format. It commences with an introduction by Schaper, which attempts to enable us to develop an “understanding” of ecopreneurs. Part 1 comprises seven chapters which introduce the concepts of this field and also review the extant body of literature on ecopreneurship and its links with its two mother fields (as identified in footnote 2). Part 2 explores, in a further six chapters, the contexts and conditions for ecopreneurship, with part 3 providing five case studies of ecopreneurial organisations.

The book would have benefited from a concluding chapter by the editor that draws together the key findings from the book and perhaps highlights some of the future research directions that have been identified by chapter authors. This would overcome the fact that some chapters have rather brief conclusions that perhaps do not draw out fully the findings and future implications of the research. However, despite this apparent limitation, this is a powerful and relevant book which has evidently proven popular in its first edition to such an extent that a second edition has been commissioned. It is one of the few edited books on ecopreneurship, another notable text being Libecap (2009).

Although there is frequent acknowledgement of synergies with social entrepreneurship, the primary weakness of some of the ecopreneurship literature in general (i.e. not confined to some chapters in this particular volume) is that, with the exception of papers such as Anderson (1998), Kirkwood and Walton (2010) and other papers, especially in the sustainability entrepreneurship literature, many articles/chapters – whilst often being well grounded in the sustainability and environmental literature – are not sufficiently grounded in the theoretical entrepreneurship and small business literature (Thompson and Scott, 2010). This problem arises, for example, in some of the chapters of this book^[3], which could have been strengthened considerably by a much more critical engagement with entrepreneurship literature and theory. Such a conversation would have provided stronger evidence (above and beyond Schaltegger's comparative chapter) of why ecopreneurship, which has a number of similarities with either commercial or social entrepreneurship, is in other ways different and distinct. It would, moreover, enable a greater unique or novel contribution to the literature.

Nonetheless, there are some particular highlights in the book, such as Schaper's introductory chapter which performs, to some extent, what a conclusion might have delivered, in that it identifies a coherent research agenda for the field, especially noting the lack of research into entrepreneurship, given the considerable literature on sustainability in existing businesses. Other highlights are identified here. Parrish and Tilley's chapter is a review of the field, defining sustainability entrepreneurship as essentially an intersection between entrepreneurship and sustainable development, and does engage with the broader entrepreneurship literature and the related niche on social entrepreneurship. They also provide an excellent review of sustainability entrepreneurship, though their review of ecopreneurship is perhaps over‐reliant upon a special issue of Greener Management International (Schaper, 2002) containing papers which were developed into the first edition of this text (Schaper, 2005). In some respects, however, that is an indication of the youth of this field (Parrish and Tilley, 2010), though the dating of the references in the book would suggest that, due to the publisher's timescales, the manuscript was completed in 2008. Consequently, there are no citations of the most recent literature, such as Libecap (2009) and Kirkwood and Walton (2010), and, indeed, except in Parrish and Tilley (2010), Parrish and Tilley's (2010) Journal of Business Venturing article based on his PhD thesis. That raises another point about this ecopreneurship research that, clearly, apart from that of Parrish, relatively few doctorates have been completed in this area given the newness of the field.

Similarly, Walley et al.'s chapter extends and tests empirically a typology earlier developed in Thompson's (1998) inaugural professorial lecture. Again, whilst this chapter is reasonably well grounded in the entrepreneurship literature, it is an exploratory study with cases of ten owner‐managers of eco‐enterprises. Schaltegger's chapter is one of the strongest in the book and he distinguishes ecopreneurship from other forms (i.e. environmental management in existing firms) and, indeed, defines it as, “entrepreneurship through environmental lenses” (p. 87). De Bruin and Lewis present a conceptual framework, “for identifying and classifying ecopreneurial firms” (p. 94), which they test with cases, while Linnanen's provides a relatively good practitioner perspective on ecopreneurship. Various other chapters include, for example, in Part Two of the book a chapter on sustainable start ups (Freimann et al.), market leadership (Petersen) and how firms can “overcome barriers through the use of networking” (Tagar and Cocklin), which is an excellent chapter which is very well grounded in the theoretical and conceptual literature.

The final and, perhaps, most valuable part of the book comprises six case studies which help, following the conceptual and contextual chapters, to provide clear documentary evidence of ecopreneurship in action – whilst also indicating a number of good practice lessons into entrepreneurial management in an ecopreneurial firm, or ecopreneurial management (a concept has not been developed in the ecopreneurship literature^[4], but which would seem to be one further avenue for research in this field). The case studies comprise: sustainable tourism in a start up context (Macbeth and Narayanan); fair trade and networks in Mexico (Kruks‐Wisner); sustainable harvest and expertise (Kammermeyer and Naumes); carbon offset and organizational innovation (Parrish); and start up and management of green projects in the UK (Jallow). A weakness is that the cases' geographical focus is restricted to US‐based eco‐enterprises (though they do have international linkages and connections), apart from Kruks‐Wisner's and Jallow's chapters. Particular highlights of this part of the book include “innovations in organizing” eco‐enterprises, rather than technological innovations, and how these “determine the nature, extent and effectiveness of change for sustainable development” (Parrish, p. 283), and the way in which clashes in values and orientation within an ecopreneurial start up team, with one being environmentally‐oriented and the other being much more “commercially driven”, can lead to tensions and ultimately the departure of one of the founders from the eco‐enterprise. In both Parrish's and Jallow's chapters, there are both fundamental implications in terms of ecopreneurial management and innovations, but also clear opportunities for future research avenues.

There is also an excellent index at the end, which is particularly useful for a book that can also act as a reference on this field. The book is aimed at both an academic and policy audience, and may be of particular utility for those who are teaching, specifically, ecopreneurial management or, more generally, environmental sustainability in existing firms. In conclusion, despite some of the criticisms of certain aspects of the book and of particular chapters, it has to be acknowledged that these are hallmarks of such a young field where there is still considerable efforts to be made in order to cross the interfaces between (both commercial and social) entrepreneurship, sustainable business management, and environmental sustainability in order to cross‐pollinate each field and the “niche” of ecopreneurship research, with enhanced theoretical and conceptual rigour and relevant knowledge, to make a stronger contribution.