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Entrepreneurship

Starting your own company is no easy feat, requiring a certain appetite for risk, passion for the vision, and a lot of resilience.

But there has also never been a more exciting time to be an entrepreneur. The sustainability field urgently needs innovation to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and entrepreneurs are drivers of transformation across all sectors, from packaging, clean energy to the food we eat (just to name a few!). To give just one example, Notpla is a company making an alternative to plastic-packaging using seaweed, founded by two Imperial College London and Royal College of Art students that received the prestigious Earthshot Prize in 2023.


In the early stage of scaling an idea into a viable business, entrepreneurs can face challenges across all domains, from building a good team and a customer base, to securing the financial resources to achieve growth goals. But for someone with big passion, ambition and belief in the vision of the idea, founding a startup and/or working in one is highly rewarding, requiring a high degree of agility in the ways of working compared to jobs in large and well-established corporations. 


Based on the survey, what are the key skill sets most important to succeeding in this role? 

  1. Leadership: Setting clear goals aligned to the wider mission and establishing the processes and accountability to the team. 

  2. Communication skills: This includes adapting communication for negotiation with key stakeholders and for working with others on the team. 

  3. Learning quickly: This is important to build financial, technical literacy even in a non-technical role, particularly around innovation. 

  4. Commercial acumen: Making sustainability profitable is vital for entrepreneurship in this field.

Career Case Study

Founder of a zero waste and vegan Kimchi company in the UK


What’s your day to day like?

My day varies a lot. I’ll be speaking to suppliers, making kimchi (of course!), setting up my stall, working on my social media account and marketing strategy, and also looking for new hires.


What are the most important skills to develop to succeed as a founder?

Prioritisation and time management. Learning how to prioritise tasks and reflect on continuously improving how to operate in the day today is essential. To improve your time-management, you can learn effective time-management skills from practice (figure out what time-management practices work for you to set a good routine!).

Resilience and problem-solving. There will be so many challenges that you need to have a mindset of never giving up and being resourceful to overcome problems when they occur.


(Sector-specific question): Why is entrepreneurship important in the sustainability field?

Sustainability inherently means going against the status quo and involves changing systems and behaviours. The skill sets that come up with creative solutions often overlap with entreneural tendencies, such as questioning, designing, implementing, and leading. But most importantly, I think entrepreneurs want to make a positive impact in whatever field they choose to tackle in sustainability.


Advice for young people looking to enter this field:

You have to love your idea because you will be living, breathing, and sleeping it.


If you aren’t thinking of founding a startup, but instead  working at a startup, be proactive. It’s a great opportunity to really get exposure to loads of different aspects of the business in what is likely a smaller and more tight-knit team.

Want to hear more about the career journey of other sustainability entrepreneurs? Check out the following SustainaPod’s interviews:

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