Environment advocates do not always come in academic/scientist, crusader, and vigilante modes. Look around, there has risen a breed who buzzes with green ideas, chirps about green pastures, and surprisingly earns “green” bucks. They’re largely in the Millennial to Gen Z age range but not excluding seniors jumping into the wagon to make sense of retirement. What fires them? Mostly, environmental consciousness awakened and nurtured by the traditional pillars and advocates in the movement and jolted by events jarring the world.
Green entrepreneurship is now a vibrant part of earth stewardship and sustainable development. It has been provoked by serious problems of the times – global warming/climate change at the extreme, ecosystem and biodiversity degradation, open-pit mining and land conversion of agricultural fields, non-renewable energy crisis, air and water pollution, chemical treatments and processing, science engineering (Genetic Modified Engineering or GMOs) especially in food, non-decomposing mountains of plastics, massive solid waste build-ups, and even undervaluing of indigenous peoples who are the natural protectors of Nature.
Who Qualifies as Green Entrepreneur?
To be a green entrepreneur is to commit to a triple and green bottomline - People, Planet, Profit. Fair-trade practices and social justice for workers. Protection and conservation of the environment. Financial viability but not at the expense of the environment. Inability to meet these is merely greenwashing The equivalent of “whitewashing”, greenwashing is when a business advertises environmental practices while doing the opposite, as well as, when it spends more money on advertising being green rather than on manufacturing an environmental or eco-friendly product. Key areas for green opportunities are agriculture, transport/energy, health/personal/home care, tourism, fashion, technology, construction and architecture.
Green Business Ideas
Examples of business in the Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises sectors (MSMEs) and their products/services are: Agriculture – organic farming of vegetables, organic restaurants; Transport/energy – e-bikes and solar panel installations; Health/personal/home care – production or distribution of organic products like herbal supplements, bath soaps and other toiletries, detergents and cleaners; Tourism – ecotour operations, green lodgings with green amenities, bicycle rentals, native souvenirs crafted by host community; Fashion – fiber, garment, bag, accessory production using natural materials like cotton, pina, bamboo, and with environmental messages for T-shirts; Technology – recycyling paper, fiber, metals from old stuffs.
There’s now a wide range of green businesses that MSMEs have put up which are showcased in the malls, tiangge stalls, and online. Many are merely eco-friendly, like cute and quirky items for youth and kids, but the vibe gets across.
Market Response
Time is ripe to flex the brain and muscles for a green enterprise. The market is now very open to being “talked” to on a green, sustainable, low-carbon lifestyle. You can then later say, you have not just forged a way to big fortune, but also, have done your part to raise environmental consciousness and influence a lifestyle that benefits not only consumers but our threatened planet earth.
Erlie Lopez is a writer, poet, PR consultant, environment advocate.
Contact: erlielopez@gmail.com .
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