2.3 Future daily life of actors in the entrepreneurial chain

Future sustainable entrepreneurism is a fascinating system to focus on as it seems that the world is now on the threshold of a huge environmental focussed period regarding regulations from the EU, acknowledgment of global warming and sustainable technical innovation. But what does this mean for the daily life of sustainable entrepreneurism and the actors which operate within in? In the next part, we’ll try to describe future scenarios for all different parties involved in the value chain, such as the EU, national government, national and local banks, municipality of Texel, entrepreneurs on Texel and of course the people from Texel themselves.

government: EU, national government

Sustainable behaviour is something which is not a standard habit of us humans, as can be seen everywhere in society around us. Most important thus, is that certain climate policies will be introduced to force people in more sustainable lifestyles. On a large scale, and in the end also for the people of Texel, this is  done by the EU and the national government. Certain measurable goals like the emission of CO2 are set to achieve and from that policy, literature has shown that: “for pro-environmental behaviour to increase well-being, it is important to convince people that their behaviour is right and meaningful, and stimulate people to choose this behaviour of their own free will (Ryan, 2000 & Kahan, 2010).

Therefore, we think that in the future, the EU and national government will have to come up with platforms to educate and teach people the value of sustainable or pro-environmental behaviour is key in this is to bring this knowledge in a way that it’s not just desired by policies, but also by the people themselves. Such is already being done on the EU level, when the European Commission the results of various European calls in databases, e.g. CORDIS (European Commission, 2016) and keeping them open for replicability, however the knowledge sharing is not yet done in an easy and user-friendly way. We think that, with the exponential growth of social media and the sharing of former private information, it must be possible for these actors to communicate well with each and every individual to encourage pro-environmental behaviour within their specific lives. This way, stimulation won’t be one message for everybody, but customized and more personal approaches for every individual, based on their social behaviour which can be provided by internet usage, google glass, smartphones, smart watches, cars connected to internet etcetera.

municipality of Texel

When we zoom in on Texel up until the level the municipality, we can describe a different kind of scenarios. These actors obviously have connections to the previously mentioned actors on a bigger scale, but they also represent a valuable connection directly to the people of Texel. On this level, there will also be more human to human interaction, rather than just communication throughout the internet. In a way, they will therefore be a very important link between the previously mentioned  higher powers and the people on Texel. The trust factor, which is of great importance in the previously mentioned YUTPA diagrams, will be of great influence on this level. The municipality of the Texel can further support the sustainable development, which is already being done and visible from projects as Energy Vision 2020, according to which Texel all Wadden islands should be energy self-sufficient in 2020 (Gemeente Texel, 2008) or Echt Texels Product supporting the local production (Echt Texels Produkt, 2016.). Such support may take various forms of subsidies, educating, etc.

financial organisations

The range of the financial organisations already varies today from loans from established institutions like banks or private investors to newly created forms as crowd-funding or micro-financing (will be discussed more in chapter 3). Financial organisations are interested in your business model and the value it creates as well as establishing long-term client relationships. In general three types of funding is differentiated: share capital (contribution of the owner of the company), loan capital (bank capital) and subsidy (governmental capital) and such can be used throughout the stages of the business development as seen in figure 2.5 (Pascual et al., 2011).

There are of course other sources of capital possible now and in the future as private investors or private bankers, venture capitalists (similar to private investors but with formalised structure) or crowdfunding (Pascual et al., 2011). We believe that with the new business models being taken into place, new ways of financing or combinations of the already mentioned ways of financing, will be taken place in the future.

NGO's, initiatives, platforms

Establishing and expanding this trust between entrepreneurs and customers will be a key focus point within the sub-system of sustainable entrepreneurism in the near future. Pro-environmental behaviour in itself does not have to result in a decrease of personal well-being (Venhoeven, Boldersdijk & Steg, 2013), provided that boundary conditions are take care off properly. In our opinion, this can be done for example by introducing knowledge platforms as “sustainable dates” within the yearly eFFect Festival. This is a platform within the festival on which students or young professionals propose their wild sustainable ideas to experts and other enthusiasts (eFFect Festival, 2015). By creating more and more of these podia, not just on festivals but on public spaces everywhere on Texel, enthusiasm can easily be spread and ideas with high potential can get investments by local banks or subsidy is provided by the municipality to give the idea a fair shot on the market. With this, platforms can be created among entrepreneurs, but also between entrepreneurs and consumers.

customer & user

This automatically brings us to the perspective of entrepreneurs and customers themselves, what will their future daily life look like? From an interesting article can be concluded that despite all of the current models of thinking, the current speed and scale of technological innovation is changing our lives profoundly (Nevejan & Brazier, 2015). On top of that, Shawn O’Connor mentioned in Forbes magazine that to be successful today, whether you work for a large company or are striking out on your own, you must be entrepreneurial (O’Connor, 2011). This shows that we will all be future entrepreneurs in some way.

We think that in this near future, there will be huge role for augmented reality to create the necessary awareness for both entrepreneurs and customers. Augmented reality means that there is a certain overlay of data while using appliances or doing your daily things. Imagine for example all wearing Google glasses and the potential for “reading” the energy usage around us. This would constantly inform us about energy consumption, energy loss and possibilities in saving energy as well. In theory, this awareness creates a certain knowledge and a will to change behaviour, simply by seeing things that we were blind to beforehand and ofcourse to reduce costs by saving energy.

competitors

We also expect that in this near future, because everybody will be an entrepreneur on some level and because almost everybody will have the possibility to access the market due to computers, little players will all get little pieces of power which were beforehand controlled by one or only a few big players. If for example little communities produce their own energy, they take control of a little part of the power on the energy market. Having way more “chains” in this energy market makes us more self-aware and less dependent of unknown external providers. This strengthens our thought that there will be many more entrepreneurs in the future, because centralized powers will be reorganized in many decentralized powers operating from everywhere.

The knowledge will be shared more easily in the future as more and more companies will apply the open patent policies in their business. The networks, already being facilitated by the platform and initiatives as TOP Texel or JONT will have more importance. Such development will further foster and speed up the innovation process and the knowledge exchange.  

suppliers

The importance of the relationship between the business and its suppliers will definitely remain in the future. The important notion regarding the sustainability is that in order to have sustainable business, the chain needs to be sustainable as a whole. Moreover, as self-sufficiency is the overarching goal, the suppliers of the local entrepreneurs should be also local (Texelars) if possible. Such cannot be done in all the markets of course, however in markets as food production, water, closed chains supporting local economy should be applied.