Why students need to be taught green entrepreneurship Premium

With the world facing multiple environmental challenges, it is becoming crucial for students to learn the principles of green entrepreneurship

While teaching entrepreneurship as a subject, institutes should also teach values of green entrepreneurship . | Photo Credit: Freepik

Green entrepreneurship aims to create and implement solutions to environmental problems and promote social change so that the environment is not harmed. Many experts also argue that green entrepreneurship could be a new business paradigm instead of a subset of entrepreneurship and involves more than making available products and services that are environmentally friendly for an exclusive market.

While teaching entrepreneurship as a subject, institutes should also teach the values of green entrepreneurship so that students can understand the importance of creating environment-friendly start-ups. Not only does this promote sustainable environmental and socio-economic development but also helps reduce damage to natural resources, solve existing problems, and provide new employment opportunities.

While green entrepreneurship values can be instilled in college students, there may be challenges in the process of practising it. There are four influencing factors that can promote the green entrepreneurial intention of college students:

Green Cognition: Green cognition is the way people organise their ideas about environmental problems and the political activities that go along with them.

Green Entrepreneurship Culture: This encourages innovation, creation, and risk-taking by considering natural resources. Students should be encouraged to come up with fresh concepts or goods that are sustainable for nature.

Green Entrepreneurship Education: The necessity for the business environment to respond to a green economy and sustainable development.

Financial Support: Assist students to establish climate-conscious start-ups by providing financial aid through various research grants.

It is crucial to analyse the relationship between green entrepreneurship education and students’ interest in implementing such ideas. Green entrepreneurship education is focused on the cultivation of entrepreneurs who have deep environmental and economic values. In this regard, the UGC’s introduction of compulsory environmental education is a step forward. In addition, teaching the importance of “converting waste into wealth” at school and university can also make students more conscious of green entrepreneurship practices.

Green entrepreneurship has the potential to play a vital role in solving environmental degradation and social problems. This is very crucial since our planet is facing several socio-economic and environmental issues such as climate change, environmental degradation, poverty and hunger, depletion of natural resources, and extinction of species — that threaten not just us but also future generations.

Many foreign universities now have “sustainability charters” declaring decarbonisation, aiming to end single-use plastic, and boosting recycling on campus. This increased awareness of green issues is now filtering into university initiatives such as attempts to embed sustainability in all subject areas. Industry leaders are also aiming to ensure their future employees will have the skills to address green issues profitably.

It goes without saying that reducing one’s influence on the environment is the main advantage of going green. Young business owners especially should be more conscious of the environmental impact of their operations. This can be achieved through teaching the values of green entrepreneurship to students, right from the college and university levels.

The writer is Acting Director, Institute of Management, JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur