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Center for Small Business and the Environment

Description

Helping Entrepreneurs Save the Planet Small business is the engine of the American economy, creating virtually all new jobs and two-thirds of all innovations, including most environmentally benign technologies. Thus it is that society's transition to a sustainable economy is being sparked by small entrepreneurial businesses. Leading the way are a proliferating number of "clean tech" companies working in alternative energy generation, water treatment, sustainable agriculture, construction, manufacturing and transportation. The technologies launched by clean tech companies are increasingly cost-effective and, consequently, investment in them is soaring both here and abroad. We call these fast-growing companies "Green Gazelles." We view Green Gazelles as shock troops assaulting outmoded industry-era technologies with innovations that are dramatically more efficient and productive. Green Gazelles are catalytic agents precipitating an emerging post-industrial economy that will protect and restore the environment while it produces abundant growth and employment. This is leadership of a high order, unique and indispensable, but because most Green Gazelle businesses are small, new and politically unorganized, they have little voice in public policy. The Center for Small Business and the Environment provides pro bono advocacy for this distinctive new category of business in order to facilitate its transformational functions. In particular, we strive to enlarge the voice of Green Gazelles acquire in politics and public policy.

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Constituents General population

Strategies Coalition work Community development Education Grassroots organizing Leadership development Media Public policy/regulatory reform Research

Keyword small business alternative energy green building Green Gazelles clean technology sustainability social entrepeneurship