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THE SECTOR OF GREEN ECONOMY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

THE SECTOR OF GREEN ECONOMY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

• The commons of the environment

• (management of public goods)

• The role of civil society in the green economy

• Sub-sectors of green entrepreneurship

• Energy communities

• the link of green entrepreneurship

 with the social economy

DEFINITION

• The green economy is based on the concept of sustainability and sustainability in relation to the environment.

• Treats the environment as a vital pillar of economic activity, but also the sustainability of society.

• Based on the combination of innovation, research and new technologies in a new model of economic development.

• The green economy proclaims measures for climate change, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, better energy management and the use of Renewable Energy Sources.

• Green entrepreneurship emerges and develops through the green economy.

THE GREEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP OBJECT

• Renewable natural resources that in contrast to non-renewable e.g. (fossil fuels), can be used without adverse effects on the environment, ie have a sustainable use.

• It is an emerging form of economic activity, based primarily on vital needs related to quality of life and the environment and is a business sector with a wide field of scope.

• The most typical examples of application concern the exploitation of protected areas (eg Natura areas) as poles of green development.

• The production and sale of organic products and livestock, but also in the development of eco-tourism and ecotourism

• At the same time, it emphasizes the management of natural resources and waste, recycling and “green infrastructure”.

• The investment in environmentally friendly transport that will reduce emissions. A typical example here is the automotive sector.

WHAT MOVES GREEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Green entrepreneurship is driven first and foremost by the urgent need to tackle climate change and the transition from fossil fuels to soft and renewable energy sources.

• Green entrepreneurship is the driving force to have a sustainable urban environment.

• The growing market demand for green products and services.

• The ethical advantage of green entrepreneurship over every form of life.

• The application of new advanced green technologies that offers advantages to green entrepreneurship investors.

• The environmental impasse of big cities and the vision for green cities.

• The pressure for adequate clean drinking water for the growing population and growing crops.

• The impasse of over-consumption of chemical drugs and pesticides and the need, but also the possibilities that exist for the use of ecotherapeutic methods and preparations

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WHAT HINDS ITS DEVELOPMENT

• First of all, consolidated investments and capital accumulation in polluting sectors of the economy, which works as a union and a deterrent to investing in green entrepreneurship (eg fossil fuels).

– The logic of easy profit that does not calculate the cost of protecting the ecosystem.

– The ignorance of the many times that green technologies offer to investors.

– The bureaucratic obstacles for the introduction of new technologies, as we had for example for the propagation of photovoltaics.

– The lack of serious incentives for infrastructure investments in green entrepreneurship.

– The deficit of the new organizational culture, as is the case for example in agricultural production where it is difficult for farmers to change the object of cultivation, although they could be replaced by other more efficient ones that do not burden the environment.

AREAS OF GREEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACTIVITY

In the field of green energy, led by energy communities, public-municipal buildings and schools can be utilized, for energy self-sufficiency of Municipalities but also to create a living example in each Municipality to organize citizens and households in collaborative energy production and save significant resources.

Using, Photovoltaics, Home Cogeneration of Electricity & Heat, Air Conditioning – Natural Cooling – Lighting

– Using Solar Electricity (for heating – cooling environment & water).

– energy saving lamps.

– Bioclimatically constructing new buildings and repairing old ones so that they are as energy-intensive as possible.

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In the field of housing, choosing natural recyclable materials that are compatible, friendly and do not harm the environment such as:

Ξύ Wood – wood: if it is a product of “sustainable forest management”

Μικά Ceramics: Utensils – roofs ,.

Ø Ecological Construction with: ecological plasters, insulation, proper water piping, doors, wiring, ecological paints, etc.

Ø Utilizing at least half of household waste with household composters

Ø With the green roofs and the green uncovered areas of the apartment buildings.

. By creating small autonomous biological treatment plants.

In the field of nutrition, by buying and consuming organic products (always labeled), limiting meat eating and replacing pre-cooked and well-preserved foods with as fresh and less “traveled” as possible until they reach our table, we give a strong impetus to green agriculture and organic products.

In the field of health, we know that prevention is better than cure. By prevention through diet, restriction of smoking, alcohol and other harmful chemicals.

· With the replacement of chemical drugs and pesticides and the possibilities with the use of ecotherapy methods and preparations.

· Alternative ways that promote Health (Holistic therapy – without drugs)

· With the Ecological way of driving (walking – cycling = Health – Good Physical Fitness.

In the field of packaging, replacing plastic packaging and bags with organic packaging and recyclable.

In the field of recycling, collecting waste in bins, promoting home composting. In tourism, choosing places that highlight ecotourism, agritourism and local organic products, hotels and shops with green standards, enhancing green tourism with the lowest impact on environment.

GREEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN CITIES

• In the face of the environmental impasse of big cities, there is the vision of “green cities”, a realistic way out of a change in the direction of investment and the consumer pattern.

• It is directly linked to green demand for healthy and beneficial products and services, to the development of renewable energy sources and water management, to bioclimatic buildings and energy saving, to the policy of “green cities” and recycling with the ecoprotection of forests and the sea. With the claim for a clean environment and health.

The benefit thus, is twofold. On the one hand we have an active promotional process for the protection of the environment and on the other hand green development that ensures the sustainability of ecosystems.

The horizontal cooperation of social networks and environmental organizations with the bodies of T.A. is the key to both eco-protection and green entrepreneurship.

• Green entrepreneurship, without the involvement of the local community is in deficit. It limits the human resources, the driving forces and the ultimate benefit to the local community.

• Green resources and policies cannot be mobilized to a sufficient degree unless local communities and local governments are mobilized to “cultivate” the soil of both demand and entrepreneurship in this direction.

URBAN ENVIRONMENT AND GREEN BUSINESS

• The main sector is the spatial planning and the “green” bioclimatic buildings

• The contribution of greenery and vegetation to the need for energy upgrading and reduction of energy consumption is very important.

• Indicatively mentioned are the energy savings by reducing the thermal load of the buildings through the absorption of solar radiation, the improvement of the microclimate, the filtering of a large part of the pollutants.

• The utilization and management of the surrounding area of ​​buildings as green spaces enhances the aesthetic and utility value of structures, improves the microclimate and leads, among other things, to environmental and energy benefits.

• The technology of construction of planted rooms (green roofs) as well as vertical gardens (green walls) in new and old buildings, gives the possibility of increasing the building as well as the total urban green.

• THE LAND OF RARE AND THE SUN OF ABUNDANCE

The rift in the exemplary model comes from developments as we have said in the field of energy. From the abundance and free energy of the Sun versus the scarcity of the earth’s energy resources. The energy landscape changes when local communities and municipalities gain autonomy in energy through cooperation. We should also point out that the social economy differs in terms of capital composition but also in terms of wage labor. The capital in this case is participatory and consists of the cooperating producers and consumers and the use of fixed assets belonging to the community. Work is flat rate and pay according to deliverables. Thus labor costs are adjusted according to performance. There can be no wages like the public. The benefit is often in the provision of goods and not in money as is the case in energy communities.

the energy communities?

Energy communities are exclusive urban cooperatives for the sole purpose, through which citizens (either as individuals or as legal entities) can be active in the energy sector, utilizing clean energy sources. The new institutional framework ensures favorable conditions for the establishment and operation of energy communities, with the aim of strengthening not only individual / family incomes, but also local entrepreneurship, the solidarity economy and the promotion of energy democracy. The social economy as a system is a necessary condition in order to achieve this goal through synergies of citizens in order to ensure a sustainable energy system for all social groups without exclusions and to tackle energy poverty. In the long run, the outlook for renewable energy sources remains positive and is characterized by steady growth in all sectors. From now until 2040, research and analysis show that:

• Total demand will increase by more than 30%.

• Renewable Energy Sources will make up about 56% of the total energy potential.

• “Developing” countries will build 3 times more potential in Renewables than “Developed”.

• Penetration of Renewable Energy Sources will double to 46% of total electricity production.

• The cost for Wind energy will be reduced by 32% while that of Solar by 48%.

• Solar energy will account for over 1/3 of the global increase in Energy potential.

• Legal entities and citizens can participate in these Cooperatives jointly or separately.

• The installation of photovoltaics can be done on roofs and photovoltaic parks.

• From information we gathered, the investment for each household ranges from 2,000 to 3,000 E. and the return benefit is around 15% per year. So depreciation of capital in less than 5 years.

• In practice, a relevant investment can ensure energy self-sufficiency in municipal buildings and schools, but also become a living example to organize citizens in collaborative energy production to save significant resources for each household.

• Civil society organizations, ecological, cultural, consumer and humanitarian can play an important and decisive role in mobilizing citizens as they have the Ma and cooperatives in Greece collapsed, our politicians will tell us, and partly justified.

• It is true but which cooperatives. In the former Soviet Union, too, state-controlled kolkhozes and collectives collapsed, but in a number of former Eastern countries, workers’ unions in East Germany, Romania, and Bulgaria are now flourishing. And if we go to West Germany and a number of other Central European countries, energy communities and consumer cooperatives flourish. In Greece, a state-owned model in agricultural cooperatives and not social cooperatives also collapsed.

• So when throughout Europe the social economy is linked to the sustainable future of work and solidarity, this perspective can not be ignored by Greek Politics and Local Government.

• SOCIAL CAPITAL of trust needed to create urban energy cooperatives as provided by the new law.

The mobilization of bottom-up processes for the production of energy from alternative sources is offered for the first time in history as large multinational companies (oil companies) become a brake on the spread of new technologies for the sharing of energy and knowledge. It is obvious that they do not want to lose their profits from a new energy industry that minimizes costs. Therefore, a political issue arises for local communities to defend the social benefit over those that hinder the diffusion of technological innovations and distributed energy. Energy is a very serious matter for the future of society and the planet due to climate change, to be left in the hands of the great multinationals who insist on holding humanity hostage to fossil fuels.

• Society’s vigilance on the issue of energy is of paramount importance. Starting the mental journey from the Promethean fire, reaching the electromagnetism and the infinite satellite radio frequencies in our mobile phones, we have to reflect.

• “Energy” in all its forms is a source of life originating from the life-giving Sun. Energy is food and every movement, energy and knowledge.

• Einstein, at the level of physics with his well-known equation E = mc2, proved that everything is energy. Respectively, at the level of the economy, energy determines every development. New technologies and forms of energy had a decisive influence in all phases of the first, second and third industrial revolutions.

• Especially in the period of the 2nd industrial revolution which was determined by fossil fuels, the concentration of energy in the big economic interests gave a huge boost to the production but in the end caused many imbalances not only in the ecology but also in the world economic system. Huge accumulation of wealth on the one hand and the expansion of world poverty on the other. In the Third Industrial Revolution that we are going through today with the possibility of pumping direct energy from the Sun and other renewable sources, the conditions are created for distributed energy and its democratic sharing.

• We are thus entering an era where horizontal energy management and production-consumption is possible by the consumers themselves who can be shareholders, producers, and consumers by organizing energy and consumer cooperatives.