Heuristics of Ecopreneurship

Abstract

Individuals or institutions that attempt to popularize eco-friendly ideas and innovations either through the market or non-market routes are referred to as ecopreneurs (Pastakia, 1998). Ecopreneurs have shown how sustainable businesses, agricultural practices and natural resource management can be adopted to minimize our ecological footprints on earth. There is an urgent need to learn from these innovations and promote their adoption in a big way. One way to facilitate such learning is to identify and define the heuristics of ecopreneurship. Heuristics may be defined as thumb-rules or short instructions to minimize the search process in arriving at an unknown solution. These can be abstracted by studying innovative products/services as well as the process of innovation adopted by the innovator/ ecopreneur. Among the most well known heuristics of ecopreneurship are the three ‘R’s viz. reduce, reuse, recycle. However, ecopreneurs are known to use several other heuristics that are not so well known. This paper describes a dozen such heuristics with suitable examples. A conceptual framework that locates these heuristics along a typical product life-cycle is presented. While diffusing eco-friendly products and technology is crucial for sustaining life on planet earth, diffusion of the heuristics is likely to have a far greater impact on account of the multiplier effect and the promotion of ecofriendly “thinking” among entrepreneurs as well as common citizens.