Sustainopreneurship

Sustainopreneurship (entrepreneurship and innovation for sustainability) is a concept that has emerged from the earlier concepts social entrepreneurship and ecopreneurship, via sustainability entrepreneurship. The concept means to use creative business organizing to solve problems related to sustainability to create social and environmental sustainability as a strategic objective and purpose, at the same time respecting the boundaries set in order to maintain the life support systems in the process. In other words, it is a "business with a cause" – where the world problems are turned into business opportunities by deployment of sustainability innovations. 
Definition.
The definition first introduced in a conference article in 2006:
Conceptual development.
The business world has been nominated as a premier force for creating a sustainable world, especially when acting as a source of innovation and creativity – e. g. as Robinson (2004:378) puts it:
Sustainopreneurship is a candidate to be the accentuating factor to give even more leverage to forces emerging from world of business activities to contribute to sustainability. The concept of sustainopreneurship was first introduced as a term in 2000 where it was predominantly related to the proactive change management approaches associated with process adjustment with increased respect to the environment. The phenomenon developed with publications in 2003, and further evolved and was tentatively defined in 2006 by Anders Abrahamsson. This tentative definition was empirically tested in his Master thesis, where the enactive research process confirmed that the definition stood the test contrasting it towards the auto-ethnographical empirical material. A paper to identify future research challenges was made beyond this in 2007, and developed further with a book chapter published in September 2008.
In general, the entrepreneurial discourse has opened up to move beyond a strictly economic phenomenon, rather than being perceived primarily as a social process at large. Preceding the conceptual formation were two traces of social entrepreneurship and eco-preneurship, dealing primarily with the social and ecological dimensions of sustainability. Primary associations with social entrepreneurship have also been establishing not-for-profit venturing and charities to innovatively address and solve social problems, whereas ecopreneurship has been primarily focused on solving environmental problems. See Principles of ecopreneurship.
Both these traces of conceptual development are taken beyond, merge and integrate into the suggested conceptual construct at hand, where distinctions are made from both of these concepts – sustainopreneurial processes taking place institutionally through for-profit organizing, but not with profit as its main driving force. Sustainopreneurial venturing is done in a holistic manner that meets both ecological and social challenges simultaneously with regard to both purpose and process. 
Three main dimensions.
The definition of sustainopreneurship needs to be highlighted by three distinguishing dimensions with all three being simultaneously present in the applied (inter)action it reflects. The first is oriented towards "why" – its purpose and motive. The second and third are reflecting two "how"-related dimensions – its process. 
1. Sustainopreneurship consciously sets out to find and/or create innovations to solve sustainability-related problems
2. Sustainopreneurship means to get solutions to the market through creative organizing 
3. Sustainopreneurship in process adds sustainability value with respect for life support systems 
Sustainable vs. sustainability entrepreneurship.
With these dimensions clarified and distinctions made a common conceptual vagueness or lack of clarity needs to be addressed, where a strong need to distinguish clearly between sustainable, vs. "sustainability" entrepreneurship is identified. From this point of view, a very important distinction with the concept formed is claimed – "sustainability" entrepreneurship as in the concept "sustainopreneurship; "the use of entrepreneurial activity in a "determined action orientation towards solving a sustainability-related problem" with (creative) business organizing as a "means" to solve the problem(s) – business with a cause: to turn business activity from a part of the problem to a part of the solution." Sustainable" entrepreneurship is just a generic entrepreneurial process that takes into consideration the boundaries set by sustainability, and does not address where to and why, the destination, the purpose or the aim of the venture. The strategic intent and the business idea in itself are not related to sustainability "per se," sustainability just being an "attachment" to the entrepreneurial process. The second and third dimensions are represented, but not the first. "Sustainability" entrepreneurship, in contrast, takes as its root of existence and strategic aim to solve a sustainability-related problem. This means that all three dimensions are simultaneously present: to take a sustainability innovation to the market through creative organizing with respect for life-supporting systems in the process.
Future development.
Given its recent date, there is a need for future research, as mentioned above. Main findings here are that conceptually, a deeper analysis is needed to be conducted with a nuanced and detailed taxonomy and framework created of sustainability innovations, the core of sustainopreneurship, primarily by cataloging and categorizing case stories. It is also needed to make a more detailed description to relate sustainopreneurship to other concepts in the wider, general idea-sphere of the "business case of sustainability", in the contemporary plethora of "buzz-words", approaches, methods and acronyms that already exists – and in this context also to motivate why this concept adds value. 
It has been recommended, though, to keep the research applied, to identify obstacles and institutional barriers, and how to overcome them; i. e. facilitating factors for sustainopreneurship, researching prospective tools, enablers and approaches. Appropriate areas and domains for sustainopreneurship applied are recommended to be digested. Research methods recommended are Enactive Research and Open Space Technology, since they add instant value among stakeholders, and in themselves naturally builds arenas where sustainopreneurship evolves and proliferates. For progress, beyond these "how"-related pointers, the key is to single out "the big questions", getting answers through collaborative, collective dialogue and conversation, with an explicit interaction and results orientation. Issues and topics have been formulated and outlined, where it is of striking importance with an intention to attract authentic forces potentially hearing this call of exploring the phenomenon further, with the purpose to collapse the degrees of separation in between the stakeholders of the sustainopreneurial concept – in idea, reflective practice and applied interaction to generate collective and collaborative wisdom for a deeper understanding of the concept. An association with this purpose is in its interim stages, ÆREAS(i).