COMM 386M - Green Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Startups
Entrepreneurs are a powerful force for change. Green entrepreneurs are driven to design new products and launch new ventures that prioritize environmental stewardship and social responsibility. These emerging innovators are tapping into critical market shifts such as circular economies, renewal energy, regenerative food systems, and conscious consumerism. In the face of climate change and climate-related disasters such as droughts, floods, and hurricanes, it is imperative for companies, communities, cities, and nations to invent and adopt sustainable solutions that promote the efficient use of resources, reduce pollutions, and protect biodiversity. This new course invites multidisciplinary students to discover and apply the foundational frameworks of green entrepreneurship and innovation to crafting sustainable startup ventures. The topics focus on developing a sustainability-oriented and entrepreneurial mindset and skillset necessary to identify, design and pitch ideas that benefit people and the planet, profitably. In Startup teams, students with discover, co-design and pitch regenerative, restorative and innovative ideas to impact investors, provided by Sauder’s Centre for Climate and Business Solutions.
Eligibility: This course is open to BCom students in Years 3 and 4; non-BCom students in Years 3 and 4 and UBC graduate students.
Learning objectives:
By the end of this experiential course, students will be able to:
- Identify their own potential as a purpose-driven entrepreneur and intrapreneur.
- Interpret key considerations, opportunities and challenges for green innovation.
- Use emerging entrepreneurial methods, tools and resources on a new venture.
- Associate and integrate the First Peoples Principles of Learning and Four Rs of Indigenous education into ideas, experiments, prototypes and value propositions.
- Design and pitch a sustainable venture business model to impact-focused investors.
Prerequisite: COMM 280 recommended.