Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Eco-Innovation

Dear Colleagues,

Entrepreneurship has been considered as a factor that promotes economic growth, generating higher employment and social welfare. This objective is achieved because entrepreneurs look for business opportunities and introduce technologies that allow them to be competitive and satisfy consumer demands. However, it has also been pointed out that by developing this activity, significant environmental damage has been created, due to the fact that part of that economic activity and the technological progress generated has been unsustainable. Due to this problem, the idea of ​​sustainability has been introduced, which places more importance on achieving sustainable development objectives. This interest in environmental degradation has led OECD countries, and especially the European Union countries, to design a "greening of industries" or business activity strategy based on greater human well-being and social equity, in order to reduce environmental risks and ecological scarcity. Thus, this sustainable development strategy, known as "green production", promotes the efficient use of resources and energy.

Given this circumstance, the concept of sustainable entrepreneurship arises as the action of entrepreneurs aimed at maintaining the sustainability of the economy. To carry out this activity, innovations are needed, among other things. Additionally, when the innovation process is considered, the environmental question also arises, since it is necessary to introduce new technologies that are not harmful to the environment. Thus, the concept ​​of eco-innovation appears in the sense of using the least possible number of natural resources in the production process. Additionally, the entrepreneur is the manager of introducing such eco-innovation. This eco-innovation is determined by a multitude of factors, including environmental regulations and laws, culture and education in this area, public policies promoting green production, technological determinants such as the efficient use of materials and energy by companies, customer demand and existing competition, and the possibility of exploiting new markets.

This Special Issue aims to collect up-to-date research articles that explore and examine the relationship between sustainable entrepreneurship and eco-innovation and their effects economic activity in order to achieve the sustainable development objective and improve social welfare.

Prof. Dr. Miguel-Ángel Galindo-Martín
Prof. Dr. María-Teresa Méndez-Picazo
Prof. Dr. María-Soledad Castaño-Martinez
Guest Editors

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