Sustainability startups and where to find them: How entrepreneurial ecosystems impact their sustainability startups

Abstract

Sustainability startups bring with them the promise of addressing some of today's most pressing social and environmental challenges with innovative solutions. While scholars agree that contextual conditions have a profound impact on such young enterprises, little is known about the entrepreneurial ecosystems in which sustainability startups develop. This thesis addresses this gap by identifying entrepreneurial ecosystems that have particularly high concentrations of sustainability startups. It further shows that the presence of sustainability lighthouse cases can help shape entrepreneurial ecosystem attributes in such a way that they ease the path for other sustainability startups. The motivation to start such startups is in turn also influenced by the context of a founder and thus differs markedly between ecosystems - particularly those in developed and developing countries. These insights are developed through a comparative analysis of the Berlin and Lagos entrepreneurial ecosystems. This work represents the first scholarly exploration of sustainability startups in the Nigerian context that we are aware of. It hopes to spark greater interest in the study of sustainability entrepreneurship beyond the developed ecosystems that extant scholarship has focused on.