Diversification and Filling Ecological Niches: Green Businesses Own a Portfolio of Enterprises
The more income-producing and complementary projects my wife and I have in our ecopreneurial business, the more stable and secure we feel, careful to not let work override quality of life considerations.
After all, we, like many ecopreneurs we’ve interviewed or met, don’t live to work. Instead, we find our livelihood and the businesses we navigate deeply satisfying as we make the world a better place through the green businesses — for profit and non-profit alike — that we own or direct.
The key to our approach to ecopreneurship is looking to nature for inspiration. Our green business is both diversified in enterprises as well as the products and services we offer, filling economic niches in much the same way as plants, animals and fungi fill ecological niches that create sustainable, interdependent and healthy ecological systems. For example, there are thousands of bed & breakfasts in the U.S., but only a few that specialize in serving vegetarian (or vegan) organic breakfasts with ingredients mostly harvested a hundred feet from their back door, like we do. That the Inn is completely powered by the wind and sun and welcomes children as guests, serves as additional niche experiences we offer our guests who we generally refer to in our ECOpreneuring book as “conserving customers,” not consumers — but more on this in a future blog.
If I told you that I was going to give you a magic device that would save you money, save the planet, and, oh yeah, firm up that flab you have been carrying around with you for the last couple of year (all for three easy payments of $19.95!), what would you say? Most people would be pretty stoked, but when I tell people that this magic device is a bicycle, the thrill [...]
