Small Business are the Green Growth Engine

An organization called Small Wonders recently released a report that documents how small businesses are driving the green economy, describing a burgeoning world of sustainability-minded entrepreneurs. Innovation will come from a technology revolution, generating new ideas in agriculture, energy, housing and transportation. But more importantly, there will be a small business-led cultural transformation, making sustainable lifestyles possible. According to the publisher, the Center for Small Business and the Environment (CSBE), “As American society struggles with devastating challenges to its business institutions and social support systems, the time has come to unveil this astonishing new world, to see it as a whole.”

The report cites several companies acting as agents of social and environmental change. NuRide is an Essex, Connecticut-based online business that facilitates car-sharing, biking, and supports public transportation. Veseth Cattle Company of Malta, Montana, is a family farm owned and operated since 1886, who have devised strategies to enhance wildlife habitats. Solargenix Energy in south Chicago makes solar water heating collectors in the first manufacturing plant constructed in the area in 35 years. The stories abound. Small business are job creators, and as they have in the last five recessions, will lead the way out of our current crisis by creating green jobs and igniting an entrepreneurial boom.

To date, however, small business have not yet organized as a group or in a unified way that gives them the clout needed for a successful transition to a post-industrial economy. Small Wonders asks policy makers and environmentalists to support small businesses, “to mobilize the transformational power of the green entrepreneurial economy to pave the way to a better, more prosperous future.”


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