1.4 Texel challenge

In general a lot has already been written about variable enterprises in rural areas,  mostly in tourism hot spots or locations in relative proximity of city-regions. However, there is not much known about a specific environment as an island, which with its remote geographies generate different, additional and exaggerated challenges. Many examples around Europe show that enterprises can be established and also prosper in such remote areas despite all the difficulties such as operating with higher costs, breaks in supply chains or weak  or non-existent linkages (Danson, 2015).

One of the key factors of a successful enterprises is the social capital, critical aspect of creating an environment conducive to startups in fragile and vulnerable regions as islands. The limited population base on the islands makes the use of non-market relations with local supplier, customers and other factors even more critical (Danson, 2015). In order to sustain the level of entrepreneurship, it is important that the current citizens of Texel would not be leaving the island. As stated above the youth could be a driver of many changes and thus is an important part of the overall picture; however this group is most likely to leave the island in time of their studies. This makes our subsystem very much connected with other sub-systems such as education, accommodation or lifestyle.

entrepreneurship on Texel

First of all, we will try to show what kind of entrepreneurs are nowadays active on the island and in what percentage they are represented. To do this, we decided that we can use the database of TOP-Texel (TOP-Texel, 2015), since they have almost 900 entrepreneurs which they represent and on 13.600 inhabitants, it should be a relatively good representation of entrepreneurship on Texel. After that, we will focus on some sustainable initiatives already happening within the present system.

Percentual overview of entrepreneurs on Texel
Total: 854 entrepreneurs in database, (TOP-Texel, 2015)

• Small scale accommodation: 468 (54.8%)
• Touristic provision of services: 88 (10.3%)
• Businesslike provision of services: 74 (8.7%)
• Retail: 63 (7.4%)
• Construction and installations: 46 (5.4%)
• Craft: 42 (4.9%)
• Entrepreneurs in recreation: 20 (2.3%)
• Texel hotel union: 34 (4.0%)
• Group accommodation Texel: 15 (1.7%)
• Administrators and mediators: 4 (0.5%)

Looking at the data provided above, we can state that sections regarding tourism are by far the ones that dominate the number of entrepreneurs within TOP-Texel. We already know that agriculture is another major sector on Texel, with 175 companies in this sector covering over 8500 hectare of soil with cattle breeding, farming, bulb cultivation and horticulture (Boerenklasse, 2015).

Total: 175 entrepreneurs in agriculture, (LTO Noord afdeling Texel, 2015)

• Farming: 85 (48.6%)
• Bulb cultivation: 35 (20%)
• Combination of above: 24 (13.7%)
• Cattle breeding:17 (9.7%)
• Horticulture: 14 (8%)

With these two lists, we mapped out the entrepreneurs in our current sub-system as well as we possibly can right now. With this information, we know the sizes of the different sections and therefore, the possible impact that changes within these sections can provoke. We have to take into account however, that these numbers describe the number of entrepreneurs and not its economic value or number of employees. We should thus be careful with using this information and the conclusions we take from it.

Texel sustainable entrepreneurship

When it comes to sustainable entrepreneurs in the present situation, we see that the biggest projects address energy production, water management, mobility, local food and entrepreneurship (Stichting duurzaam Texel, 2016). In particular the production of sustainable energy by wind, sun, biomass or tidal is addressed on a large scale on Texel. But how are both established and new entrepreneurs encouraged to go sustainable these days?

First of all, several teams are founded to guide and accelerate the transition of Texel towards a sustainable future. An example is Texel Team 2020, which has been guiding sustainable projects since 2000 and makes sure that promised goals are being achieved by companies and they bring people with sustainable visions together to inform each other and to adjust strategies if necessary towards 2020 when Texel wants to be energy and water neutral. This organisation is broadly accepted by the people of Texel, since the board is formed by representatives of several organisations from the island. Important is that this organisation is being financed by subsidies and thus from local municipality and the national government. Also Texel entrepreneurs offer working hours to get these projects off the ground (Stichting duurzaam Texel, 2016). It seems like sustainable behaviour has to be demanded by higher powers, such as EU, national government and local municipality for entrepreneurs to act as such.

problem statement

In Texel in our opinion, the boundary conditions for sustainable entrepreneurship need to be substantially improved, requiring a joint collaboration of all the involved parties including financial institutions, municipality of Texel, educational institutions, citizens and the entrepreneurs themselves. The citizens and the entrepreneurs are the key players when striving for change, which should be facilitated by the financial institutions and municipality. The overall aim should be to create an environment where all the actors involved believe in the importance of sustainability and also making sustainability financially feasible and desirable.

sustainability criteria of the future sub-system

As described above in the current system of the entrepreneurs and the envisioned future system of the entrepreneurs, there are several key areas of importance, in which we need to focus:

• awareness of entrepreneurs and customers - corporate social responsibility & demand
• collaboration and knowledge sharing
• independence

Texel should take advantage of its geographical distance and make use of the already established high levels of collaboration and cooperation, coming from the tradition of communal working in such distant areas (Danson, 2016). Ideally, future Texel will function as a hub for innovation where all different creative minds should openly share their ideas in order to improve each other's businesses. The idea coming together should support the self sufficiency of the island in all the economic branches.

Good creative ideas must be spotted, supported and pushed forward, improved and afterwards distributed also outside of the island. A financial help for the creative young businesses must be organized, either in form of municipal subsidies, by companies,other institutions or through new ways of financing; feasible solutions of such network much be thought of. Only then the sustainability may be also financially feasible, an important element for any entrepreneur, big or small.

Regarding the CO2 neutrality of the business, it is not possible to require and envision that each business or entrepreneurs would need to be CO2 neutral in the future, this image is just not possible. However, what can and should be achieved is the CO2 neutral system, market. A sustainable entrepreneur being in a CO2 neutral system must be aware of his position within the system, depending on the business he is in.

research & design challenge

The main question of this research in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship is:

What factors and relations are necessary to be established in order to create a fruitful climate for sustainable entrepreneurship in Texel?

The factors for sustainable entrepreneurship may take several forms: policies, subsidies, networks, knowledge exchange, awareness, etc. A well-balanced mix comprises of all these forms and enable the enterprises to grow and good innovative ideas to accelerate. One of the resulting proposals of the research may also be a creation of platform, a place for research and showspace for the creative ideas.