The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business and climate performance of start-ups

Jip Leendertse; Frank J. van Rijnsoever; Chris P. Eveleens

doi:10.1002/bse.2667

The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business and climate performance of start-ups

Jip Leendertse^*, Frank J. van Rijnsoever, Chris P. Eveleens

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Sustainable start-ups introduce new sustainable technologies and business models that facilitate the transition to a carbon neutral economy. To understand how to create viable sustainable start-ups, we study what factors predict their business performance and climate performance (i.e., the ability of the start-up to reduce CO ₂ equivalent [CO ₂e] emissions) and if these contradict. A critical factor we consider is technology, which is commonly at the root of climate performance, and important for business performance because it influences a start-up's competitive advantage. Using a sample of 197 sustainable start-ups, we find a paradox between business and potential climate performance. Start-ups that exploit hardware technologies have a lower business performance but a higher potential climate performance. Through the use of mediating effects, we show that the sustainable start-up paradox is context specific. Start-ups can partly escape this paradox by focusing on novel and hardware technologies. We discuss implications for theory and practice.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1019-1036
Number of pages	18
Journal	Business Strategy and the Environment
Volume	30
Issue number	2
Early online date	5 Nov 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.2667
Publication status	Published - Feb 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was partly funded through the Horizon 2020 IRIS Project and Climate‐KIC. Our appreciation goes to Climate‐KIC for granting us access to their program and the data used in this research. In this, our special thanks go to Erik Faassen and Cassi Welling for their help in the data collection process.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors. Business Strategy and The Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Copyright:
Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

business performance
climate performance
environment
environmental entrepreneurship
start-ups
sustainability transition
sustainable entrepreneurship
technology

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1002/bse.2667Licence: CC BY

Bus Strat Env - 2020 - Leendertse - The sustainable start‐up paradox Predicting the business and climate performance ofFinal published version, 10.3 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business and climate performance of start-ups",

abstract = "Sustainable start-ups introduce new sustainable technologies and business models that facilitate the transition to a carbon neutral economy. To understand how to create viable sustainable start-ups, we study what factors predict their business performance and climate performance (i.e., the ability of the start-up to reduce CO 2 equivalent [CO 2e] emissions) and if these contradict. A critical factor we consider is technology, which is commonly at the root of climate performance, and important for business performance because it influences a start-up's competitive advantage. Using a sample of 197 sustainable start-ups, we find a paradox between business and potential climate performance. Start-ups that exploit hardware technologies have a lower business performance but a higher potential climate performance. Through the use of mediating effects, we show that the sustainable start-up paradox is context specific. Start-ups can partly escape this paradox by focusing on novel and hardware technologies. We discuss implications for theory and practice. ",

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The sustainable start-up paradox: Predicting the business and climate performance of start-ups

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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