1. Green Community Entrepreneurship
Travis Gliedt
Paul Parker
University of Waterloo
Presented at the Social Economy Conference University of Toronto
April 2007, Toronto, ON

2. Overview Social Economy Definition
How does the process of entrepreneurship in the social economy differ from the for-profit sector?
Green Community Entrepreneurship
Social Economy
Ecological Economics
Social Entrepreneurship
Environmental Entrepreneurship
GCE in Green Communities Canada
Conceptual Framework of GCE
Policy Implications

3. Social Economy Revenue Generation Traditional Entrepreneurial
Quarter (1992): ‘vision of social transformation’
McMurtry (2004): reincorporate transformative approach
Westlund (2003): social and commercial economies should be viewed as ‘parts of a continuous spectrum’
Revenue Generation
Traditional
donations
Entrepreneurial
commerce, fees, etc.
Social benefits are defined broadly to include environmental benefits as both are externalities to firms.
Tension
Third sector non-profit organizations providing socially-beneficial products or services designed to fill a gap left by the government and the competitive for-profit market.

4. For-Profit Social Economy
How does entrepreneurship in the social economy differ from the for-profit sector?
For-Profit Social Economy
Individual
Financial Capital
Idea Patenting
Profit Objective
Collective
Social Capital
Idea Sharing
Social Objective
Green Community Entrepreneurship …
The collective ability to mobilize resources, including social capital, to provide products or services that achieve environmental rather than profit maximising goals.

5. Case Study: Green Communities Canada (GCC) and EnerGuide for Houses (EGH)
Successful EGH service provider since 1998
Largest program and revenue source for many green community organizations
2005 expansion of program, November
2006 new federal government, January
Cancellation of Program, May
new evaluations – 1 day notice
Follow-up evaluations – 12 months
How will green communities respond?

6. GCE in Green Communities Canada
N=12 GCOs; May January 2007
Creative Response
% Energy Related
45 service innovations
29 proposals
24 ideas / opportunities
76%
70%
63%
GCO managers …
“I must say that creativity and organizational structure/funding are quite inter-related…some sort of foundation or stability helps make creativity possible”.
“We survived due to guts, determination, and entrepreneurship!”
GCE helped GCOs Survive and Thrive

7. New Service Innovations by Type – Energy vs Non-Energy Related

8. Green Community Entrepreneurship
Social Entrepreneurship
Individual
Collective
Facilitating Factors
Drivers
Team
Functional
Environmental Sustainability Objective
Strategic Partnerships
Green Community Entrepreneurship
Social Capital Network
Funding Shock
Market Collapse
Human Capital
Creative Responses
Accelerated Development of Existing Idea
New Idea and Implementation
Expanded Scale of Existing Service

9. Implications of GCE GCE as a tool for LED and SD
GCE can aid CEM objectives
Climate change mitigation and adaptation
Joint project implementation between social entrepreneurs and environmental entrepreneurs
GCE long term organizational stability

10. Questions?