University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

three of the ecopreneurs in the case studies above view their business not just as an
income stream but as a vehicle for social change.
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This is in line with Birkeland’s reflection that, “perhaps the defining insight of green
thought is that sustainability requires more than eco-efficiency, or the minimising of
energy, resources and waste; it also requires fundamental personal, social and
institutional transformation” (Birkeland, 2002) and perhaps these kinds of
ecopreneurial businesses and their shecopreneurs will provide a route towards that. If
indeed, even in a business context, “we are faced with the prospect of taking charge
of our own freedom… then… with choice comes responsibility [including that] - for
our own lives" (Ridderstrale, 2000). This is perhaps the prescient point; that these
shecopreneurs are investing their own lives into their organisations in a fundamental
way. These businesses are expressions of self; exposés of personal principles and
ethics, and as a result they are stronger and more far-reaching. If in “an increasingly
uncertain world for business… being green is a way to find certainty in today's
shifting world” (Friend, 2009) then these ecopreneurial businesses are set to prosper.
But at the same time, perhaps our shecopreneurs have seen “the stockbroker and the
great barrister going indoors to make money and more money” and have recognised
its futility when “it is a fact that five hundred pounds a year will keep one alive in the
sunshine.” (Woolf, 1928.)