Ecopreneurs are those entrepreneurs who sell green services or products, for profit. The research on this sub-category of entrepreneurship is still in its infancy, especially in South Africa. The focus of this study is to undertake research to understand the motivational drivers of ecopreneurs, why they decide to start and run their green businesses, and if and how that may differ from the general population of entrepreneurs. The findings in this research report will be compared to the existing body of literature on ecopreneurial motivations outside of South Africa.This research project comprises ten in-depth interviews with ecopreneurs in South Africa. Ecopreneurs were interviewed face-to-face, in an unstructured format. Secondary sources of data such as printed marketing material and company web sites were also collected.The research found that ecopreneurs in South Africa were motivated by ten factors, in order of prevalence: passion and meaning; identifying a gap in the market; values; money; disruption and change; independence; family-related motivators; dealing with pleasant people; vision and the least prevalent, work-related motivators. Ecopreneurs and entrepreneurs appear to have quite similar motivations, aside from their passion and values. Their economic motivations were found to be secondary to other motivations like passion and values.There was a lack in diversity in the sample and the country context of South Africa influences the results.This is the first sample of ecopreneurs of its kind in South Africa and given the gaps in the literature, especially in South Africa, a total of ten suggestions were made for future research. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This thesis describes corporate greening in general, and specifically the environmental technology (ET) sector as a green sector. The thesis has also particular focus on production and products related aspects and the influence of the environmental profile of the ET sector on the environmental engagement of companies in the sector. The study is based on a questionnaire-based survey, online surveys and on semi-structured open-ended interviews. The organizations within the ET sector were identified using existing platforms within this sector: Sustainability Sweden and Swentec. The results show that not all companies and industry associations in the ET sector clearly distinguish between product and production related environmental aspects. Furthermore, the product related environmental profile, which constitutes the legitimacy for the sector, can influence companies’ environmental strategy, not only positively but also negatively. The results from the survey on Global Supersector Leaders 2009/2010 in Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) show that all companies are aware of production and product related environmental issues. Based on results from this survey a model of corporate environmental profile consisting of product and production oriented activities as well as initiatives that go beyond the core business operations is proposed. These initiatives can be divided into two groups: environmental education and environmental projects and sponsorship. This thesis proposes products and production related impacts and environmental activities as bases for defining corporate environmental profiles, corporate greening, and for defining ‘green’ and ‘green-green’ business as well as environmental leaders. The distinction between product and production related environmental initiatives as well as the other dimensions of the proposed model in this thesis can support companies in their communication of environmental performance and environmental activities.  Furthermore, ‘competitive advantage’, ‘environmental responsibility’ and ‘environmental leadership’ should motivate companies within the ET sector to be ‘vocal’ green-green firms.

This thesis contributes to our knowledge on the emergence of environmental entrepreneurs. The study is guided by the research question, “how do UK environmental entrepreneurs start to form their distinctive environmental entrepreneurial thinking” and analyses the development of the environmental entrepreneurial mindset in the UK, through a theory of practice perspective. Based on a three-stage data collection process (preliminary focus group, semi-structured interviews and life stories), the study (1) conceptualises the construction of the environmental entrepreneurial mindset, (2) investigates the experiences of constraints for practice and (3) analyses differences in habitus and constraints on the basis of the sampling dimensions, type (social environmental and commercial) and gender (male and female). The study was undertaken under a social constructivist perspective and follows the naturalistic paradigm (Guba, 1978). The rigour (or trustworthiness) of the qualitative approach has been established according to perspectives by Mason (2001) and Guba and Lincoln (1985). The empirical basis of the study is comprised of a three stage design of discursive interviews, involving overlapping collective (focus group) and individual (life stories, in-depth interviews) data collection techniques, with a partly gathering structure (through semi-structured questions). A preliminary focus group identified key themes relevant to the study’s objectives and the concepts of the theory of practice (field, capital, and habitus). Three life stories refined the themes and analysed them within the context of entrepreneurs’ lives. The two stages enabled the development of questions targeting themes for the in-depth interviews and the cross case content analysis. For sampling purposes, the Maximum Variation Sampling (MVS) strategy was employed, which enabled identification and analysis of common and divergent themes (Miller & Crabtree, 1999) and by over-coming the limitations of the sample size, it provided a conditional representativeness. The findings show that environmental entrepreneurs accumulate divergent forms of cultural, social and economic capital, which shapes their entrepreneurial and environmental mindsets, triggering the creation of a disposition (habitus) towards setting up an environmental enterprise. Studying the formation of the environmental entrepreneurial mindset addresses a relevant knowledge gap and offers theoretical and methodological contributions. It also confers implications for practice, with a particular reference to entrepreneurial education and policymaking.