Creating-entrepreneurial-mindset

Environmental aspects of entrepreneurship – necessity in business education5. limitation of negative environmental impact (and, ultimately, improving the standardof living),6. creation of customers’ ecological awareness, development of “green” consumptionand less harmful adverse environmental effect,7. improving the image of the enterprise and confidence boost,8. integrated policy during preparation of new products (services), taking into accountproduct and resources’ recycling, their processing or re-use and the entire productlife cycle (cradle-to-grave analysis) as well as implementation of environmentalmanagement systems,9. reduction of costs related to ecological duty (or fine) or diminution of insurancepremium (lessened ecological risk),10. possibility of preferential financing for pro-ecological investments (funds from EUand domestic institutions like the National or the Voivodeship Funds for EnvironmentalProtection and Water Management).The aforementioned actions may consist in: introduction of environmental managementsystems (ISO 14001, EMAS) or plainly initiation of cost-effective managementof energy and resources (in case of some micro- and small enterprises the cost ofdedicated systems’ implementations could be too high compared to the outcomes),recycling and resources’ re-use, waste segregation and utilisation, implementation ecocertificationsystem (typical for particular economy branch), using services from suppliersproviding certified products or services, introduction of eco-innovations. Someof these may result from environmental law (and the necessity to adapt the operation tovalid regulations) while others, voluntary ones, relate to CSR.Enterprises’ owners and managers should have at least elementary knowledge regardingthprinciples of the sustainable development, ecological aspects of economicactivity (and its impact) or pro-ecological solutions, also because one should pay attentionto the fact that implementation of such aspects into business practice affects costreduction and improves effectiveness.4. MethodIn order to identify contents concerning environmental aspects of economic activity,sustainable development and “greening” the economy, lectured at public universities inPoland, an analysis of study syllabuses at two fields, economics and management, wasprepared. The review was prepared for randomly selected universities and technicaluniversities. The relevant data were acquired from universities’ web pages. It must bementioned that not all universities published the descriptions of the syllabuses in Internet(some of them were available only in Intranet, for registered users). Such universitieswere disregarded. Results of the review are not fully comparable: some universitiespublished course for different years: predominantly for 2013/2014, but some for106