India's Entrepreneurial Path to Green Market Solutions in Waste Management: The Case of Carbon Masters

Introduction

Individuals become entrepreneurs when they identify an unsolved problem or an unmet need and turn it into an opportunity. Thus, how opportunities are recognized and grow from an idea to an entity is a central theme to entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs are focusing on solving sustainability issues and turning climate change problems into opportunities. These entrepreneurs are known as ‘green entrepreneurs.’ Entrepreneurs are agents of innovation, but, individually, green entrepreneurs are driven not only by profitability but also by improving the environment. Indeed, as a paraphrased lyric from Kermit the Frog: “It’s not easy being green!” (Raposo, 1970:87).

Without a doubt, a ‘green’ start-up has more obstacles to overcome than any other kind of venture, especially in a developing country such as India. With her massive population, India is known for having an entrepreneurial culture (Gupta, 1994). Individuals make a living by selling anything from used parts to soap sachets to anyone who passes by. Most people think of Indian entrepreneurs as call centers, or IT-focused companies. Rarely do people connect green entrepreneurs to India. However, Indians have been able to identify opportunities and combine resources in unique ways to create value, which is the essence of being an entrepreneur (Gartner, 1990).

As entrepreneurs develop their businesses in environments where institutional uncertainties are more considerable, start-ups have to build trust with potential customers more-so in order to create value and fill institutional voids (Palepu et al., 2010). Institutional voids are more common in emerging economy countries such as India. As a result, start-ups rely more heavily on informal relations with key institutional stakeholders to reduce institutional uncertainty (Uzo and Mair, 2014). Institutional uncertainty arises from the difficulty some start-ups face when navigating in a weak, formal institutional environment which is a common characteristic in addition to higher levels of poverty (Dorobantu, et al., 2016). Therefore, to find success, potential entrepreneurs have to increase their networks (London and Hart, 2010), whether formal or informal. With that said, emerging economies offer tremendous opportunities for start-ups willing to radically change their practices (Bylund and McCaffrey, 2017).

While entrepreneurship is not a new concept, green entrepreneurship is a recent phenomenon. Within the last century, there has been an overbearing need for sustainable consumption and production practices. Indeed, environmental problems are nothing new, but the traditional efforts to be a corporate socially responsible company is to be innovative for the so-called green economy. Consequently, there has been a paradigm shift of changing priorities for start-ups to focus on sustainability from the very beginning of company inception. Nevertheless, most research has focused its attention on how and why existing companies can become greener. By first considering the environmental needs, this can create a niche market, yet does not necessarily equate to success. There are constant barriers to survival that evolve as the company operates and expands.

One of the significant barriers is financing, but other barriers include a lack of intellectual property rights to protect one's innovation. Intellectual property policies and regulations need to be strong in countries to support entrepreneurs because if it is weak or lacking, then entrepreneurs will not risk losing their ideas or concepts to others. Thus, once the market opportunity presents itself, and the team of people is in place, it becomes a matter of securing the finances and protecting one’s innovation.

One such green, innovative start-up is Carbon Masters, currently based in Bangalore, India. They work in a niche industry of carbon consulting, which is challenging to secure continuing financing. There are various options to finance one's start-up, but how Carbon Masters was able to start and expand is worth analyzing for future start-ups in either a developed or developing country context. In reality, more often than not, Carbon Masters spends more time educating businesses and governments about the impact of the environment in order to convince potential investors how their innovation can help create more sustainable communities.

Therefore, this chapter will define a green entrepreneur and briefly discuss the meaning behind a green economy. The next section showcases India's path to green market solutions that presents India’s policies that support green innovation, especially within waste management systems. Finally, this chapter presents a case study about Carbon Masters and their innovative ways to solve waste management issues. The chapter concludes by offering possible research ideas for the future.