Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Mapping the Business Landscape for the Last 20 Years

Abstract

Sustainable entrepreneurship is venturing to shift business practices towards environmental and social sustainability. It gained popularity worldwide, particularly in the US, due to promoting regulations for some sustainability areas, the high availability of impact investment, and the large-scale entrepreneurial ecosystem of the country. However, the literature does not explain what sustainable entrepreneurs undertake in business. This paper investigates (1) what the coverage of sustainable entrepreneurship is, (2) how this coverage has changed in the last 20 years, and (3) which sustainable development goals (SDGs) sustainable entrepreneurs serve. For these questions, the study analyses keyword co-occurrences of companies (n = 2004) from 72 countries and regions listed on the CrunchBase database with sustainability identification. The study shows differences in coverage and changes between the US and the other countries in the last 20 years. The study maps sustainable entrepreneurs to the SDGs they primarily serve, analysing their descriptions and websites. It identifies the distribution of sustainable entrepreneurs over SDGs, locating more popular and less popular SDGs. The paper invites several research streams on sustainable entrepreneurship and suggests policies to promote SDGs among sustainable entrepreneurs.