Abstract

This purely theoretical paper examines the relationship between the pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunity and environmental impact. Specifically, we attempt to more effectively define environmentally-relevant entrepreneurship through comparisons of different extant definitions in the literature, and to extend Schumpeterian theory through the inclusion of environmental entrepreneurship within his framework. By doing so, we contribute to the entrepreneurship literature through a more encompassing and specified definition of environmental entrepreneurship, and by incorporating environmental entrepreneurship into Schumpeter’s (1934) theoretical framework. We propose that (1) Waste-Equals-Food, (2) Public Goods, and (3) Externalities each demonstrate thatenvironmental entrepreneurship is the act of creating future goods and services with positive environmental consequences. Finally, we assert that Schumpeter would likely characterize the pursuit of any such opportunity as “opening up a new source of supply.”