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Please watch the video lecture ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqbISHG8iuE&feature=emb_logo ) and read the attached paper then answer the following:
Identify an entrepreneurial venture, write a brief summary of the organization and explain how it engages with the Covid-19 crisis. Also review the success/failure of this venture (300-400 words).
  • Article
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
    00(0) 1–28
    © The Author(s) 2019
    Digital Sustainability and
    Entrepreneurship: How
    Digital Innovations Are
    Helping Tackle Climate
    Change and
    Sustainable Development
    Article reuse guidelines:
    sagepub. com/ journals- permissions
    DOI: 10.1177/1042258719899425
    journals. sagepub. com/ home/ etp
    1
    Gerard George
    , and
    Simon J. D. Schillebeeckx
    , Ryan K. Merrill
    1
    1
    Abstract
    We explore how digital technologies are helping address grand challenges to tackle climate
    change and promote sustainable development. With digital technologies, entrepreneurial organizations have adopted innovative approaches to tackle seemingly intractable societal
    challenges. We refer to these broadly as digital sustainability activities. By focusing on the digital
    toolbox employed by pioneering organizations, we propose a research agenda that generates
    novel questions for entrepreneurship, business models, and ecosystems as well as new ways of
    thinking about
    trust and institutional logics.
    We believe that
    digital sustainability
    can spur
    empirical advances
    in entrepreneurship, innovation, and
    strategy with potential
    for positive impact
    on
    society.
    Keywords
    sustainable, business models, technology and innovation management
    We observe a convergence of two seemingly disparate trends in business with consequences for
    entrepreneurship theory and practice. The first trend relates to the heightened attention to the
    climate emergency and the need for societal actors to take on expanded roles in the production
    of environmental and social value (Di Domenico et al., 2010; Embry et al., 2019; George et al.,
    2012; Howard- Grenville et al., 2014). Earth’s dire situation has been brought to the fore by
    diverse stakeholders. The European parliament recently followed the UK and Canadian governments
    in
    declaring
    a
    climate
    emergency.
    In
    popular
    media,
    Netflix
    and
    David
    Attenborough’s
    “Our
    Planet”
    and
    a
    wave
    of
    activists
    are
    raising
    awareness
    among
    the
    general
    public.
    Among
    scientists,
    the
    IPCC
    (2018) report on climate
    change
    and the
    devastating
    IPBES report on
    1
    Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, Singapore
    Corresponding Author:
    Gerard George, Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University, 50 Stamford Road, Singapore
    178899, Singapore.
    Email:
    ggeorge@ smu. edu. sg
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    2
    biodiversity loss (Díaz et al., 2019) restate insights known for decades in ever more forceful
    terms. In business, companies are voluntarily or, under pressure of investors, governments, and
    other stakeholders, committing to ambitious environmental goals (Delmas et al., 2019; Nave &
    Ferreira, 2019; Pacheco et al., 2014; York et al., 2018). This is the sustainability imperative.
    The second trend involves the rapid digitalization of the economy. A variety of new technologies
    are
    forming
    a
    digital
    toolbox
    of
    solutions
    that
    challenge
    the
    status
    quo.
    Artificial
    intelligence
    and machine learning (AI/ML) are advancing exponentially and both businesses and
    governments are competing in a race to harness its potential. While PwC (2017) estimates AI will
    add some 14%—or USD 15.7 trillion—to the global economy by 2030, observers raise concerns
    ranging from adverse employment impacts to the ethical implications of AI- based decision making
    (Jarrahi,
    2018).
    As
    AI/ML
    begins rapidly altering resource allocations within and across
    economies, the Internet of Things (IOT) promises to connect billions of devices in webs of
    autonomous communication. The resulting “smart” houses, transportation systems, electricity
    grids, and cities will increase economic flows by lowering transaction costs (Pasolini et al., 2018)
    in ways that make lives easier and increase welfare. And simultaneously, distributed ledgers or
    blockchains are resurfacing from their initial hype with a promise to reorganize transactions in
    fairer, more decentralized, open access, efficient, and reliable ways (Hammi et al., 2018). Some
    insiders consider blockchain so transformative it will instigate the next “infrastructure inversion”—the
    previous three
    being
    driven
    by
    steam,
    electricity, and
    the
    Internet—that
    will
    fundamentally
    alter
    the
    global
    economic
    and institutional
    infrastructure
    and our very social
    fabric
    (Antonopoulos,
    2015).
    This is the
    digital
    imperative.
    The
    convergence
    of
    the
    sustainability
    and
    digital
    imperatives
    is
    beginning
    to
    gain
    traction
    in
    the private and public sectors
    (Merrill
    et
    al.,
    2019), but has yet to galvanize
    systematic and
    rigorous academic
    research.
    While
    a growing cadre of social
    scientists attend
    to inclusion
    (George
    et
    al.,
    2012,
    2019), natural resource management (Delmas et al., 2019; George et al., 2015;
    George & Schillebeeckx, 2018; Markman et al., 2016), and societal grand challenges (George
    et al., 2016), management scholars have yet to embrace the urgency of climate change and sustainable
    development
    in
    their
    work.
    With
    this
    article,
    we
    hope
    to
    inspire
    fellow
    academics
    and
    practitioners
    to increase their focus on and advocacy
    for
    entrepreneurial
    organizations
    developing
    digital
    sustainability
    activities.
    Given
    the
    scientific
    consensus
    on
    the
    urgency
    and
    gravity
    of
    the
    challenge to combat
    man-
    made climate
    change,
    our
    scholarly communities
    should not remain
    on the
    side
    lines.
    Beyond
    looking in
    and helping
    students—from
    undergraduate
    to
    executive
    education—understand
    what is at stake, our managerial
    studies can encourage
    and guide leaders
    and institutions to lead the way to a carbon- free society.
    In our exploratory research, we see entrepreneurial actors employing digital technologies to
    tackle crucial sustainability challenges. They have done so, not only through technological innovation,
    but also by developing
    business models that
    infuse innovations with new purpose.
    The
    activities
    of these
    actors,
    their
    business models,
    and the
    problems
    motivating
    their
    work form
    the
    focus of this
    article.
    We
    define
    digital
    sustainability
    as
    the
    organizational
    activities
    that
    seek
    to
    advance
    the sustainable development goals through creative deployment of technologies that
    create, use, transmit, or source electronic data. The digital nature of these activities enables them
    to be less constrained by geographic boundaries and enhances scalability leading to higher
    impact. In addition, the objectives guiding these activities focus on the creation of socioecological
    value
    as
    an
    integral
    part
    of
    an
    economic
    proposition,
    thereby
    disarming
    the
    trade-
    off
    between
    profit
    and
    purpose.
    This
    differentiates
    the
    digital
    sustainability
    lens
    from
    more
    established
    lenses
    we discuss
    below.
    In the following section,
    we paint
    a picture
    of the climate
    emergency by summarizing
    key
    findings
    in
    the
    natural
    sciences
    and
    revisit
    four
    complementary
    phenomenological
    lenses
    investigating
    sustainability
    problems and the role of entrepreneurship.
    We then abstract from their foci
    George et al.
    3
    to extract six high- level problems that underpin the organizational challenge of tackling sustainability, after
    which
    we
    delineate our novel
    perspective
    focusing on digital
    sustainability. Next,
    we propose six digital sustainability
    pathways that creatively
    use the new digital toolbox to
    address some of the
    most important
    challenges
    we face
    as a species.
    We conclude
    with a
    proposed research agenda on digital
    sustainability.
    Overview of the Literature
    Planetary Boundaries
    Perhaps the foremost challenge facing humanity is a three- pronged overshooting of planetary
    boundaries beyond which sustaining life as we know it becomes precipitously untenable
    (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen et al., 2018). Critical pathways leading to overshoot and collapse
    involve runaway global warming due to carbon- intensive industrialization, overconsumption of
    nitrogen and phosphorous, and wholescale biodiversity loss. An overwhelming body of scientific
    work describes the link between industrial pollution and self- reinforcing feedback loops that
    drive additional greenhouse gas emissions (Lenton et al., 2008). Feedbacks range from methane
    release from thawing permafrost (Dean et al., 2018) and the dieback of boreal forest (Burke
    et al., 2017) to albedo loss from shrinking ice caps and melting sea ice. Cognizant of the slow
    rates of natural, terrestrial carbon sequestration, climate feedbacks reveal humanity racing stubbornly toward a point of no return
    (Bendell,
    2018).
    Second, industrial
    agriculture’s overreliance
    on nitrogen
    and phosphorous inputs is poisoning
    waterways, producing massive
    algae-
    blooms and coastal dead zones, and threatening
    global food
    security
    (Conijn
    et
    al.,
    2018). Nitrogen pollution poisons infants and contributes
    significantly to
    global warming
    (James
    et
    al.,
    2018), exemplifying
    the
    interrelatedness
    of environmental
    factors
    in a complex nexus
    (Schillebeeckx
    et
    al.,
    2018).
    The overuse of chemical
    fertilizers,
    driven
    mainly by
    animal-
    rich diets, remains the primary driver of nitrogen and phosphorous
    pollution.
    Third,
    nearly 50% of all Earth’s individual animal populations are suffering from habitat
    destruction (land consumption) and poaching (animal consumption) that will—if unabated—
    drive an estimated one million species to extinction in the next decades (Díaz et al., 2019). The
    IPBES report finds that unprecedented declines in biodiversity threaten over 80% of SDG targets
    related to poverty, hunger, health, water, cities, climate, oceans, and land. Overuse of grazing
    land for livestock, deforestation, and pernicious demand for rare animal parts as medicines and
    status symbols remain major drivers of species loss today. Countering these existential threats to
    our natural ecosystems, while staying within the safe operating space for six other planetary
    boundaries, is the most pressing issue of our time (Rockström et al., 2009).
    Grand Challenges
    Grand challenges as a thematic focus reached mainstream management research only recently
    (George et al., 2016). Grand challenges comprise specific critical barriers whose removal would
    significantly help solve globally important societal and/or environmental problems. “Grand challenges” thus engage a broad problem scope ranging, from global warming, aging populations,
    inequality, and poverty to health,
    resource
    scarcity, and the elusiveness of sustainable
    livelihoods.
    Addressing
    these
    complex
    problems
    requires
    coordinated
    and
    collaborative
    efforts
    at
    the
    firm,
    community, state, and regional level as well as behavioral change to produce solutions
    across political and geographic boundaries (George et al., 2016).
    The grand challenge lens is largely agnostic about the focal actor. Scholars have engaged
    grand challenges by looking at incumbents (Luo et al., 2016), NGOs (Mair et al., 2016),
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    4
    single- purpose organizations (Cobb et al., 2016), partnerships (Doh et al., 2018), and supply
    chains (Kim & Davis, 2016). Others have engaged communities (Berrone et al., 2016), bureaucracies
    (Heese
    et al., 2016), emergent organizations in disaster relief (Williams & Shepherd,
    2016), and the policy–research interface (Vakili & McGahan, 2016).
    Thanks to the rich contexts offered by grand challenges, theoretical lenses in this emerging
    area of scholarship are equally diverse. Recent contributions have focused on resource dependencies
    and
    nexus thinking
    (George
    et
    al.,
    2015;
    Schillebeeckx
    et
    al.,
    2018), framing
    (Reinecke
    &
    Ansari,
    2016;
    Wright &
    Nyberg,
    2017), as well as the pursuit, promise, and limitations
    of
    inclusive growth
    (George
    et
    al.,
    2019;
    Halme
    et
    al.,
    2012). Others have drawn attention
    to
    capability
    perspectives
    (Ansari
    et
    al.,
    2012)
    and
    to
    dynamic
    institutional
    fields
    in
    “entrepreneurial
    contexts
    relevant to grand
    challenges and wicked problems”
    (Briscoe
    et
    al.,
    2018). In sum, the
    grand
    challenges approach
    envelops
    a
    variety
    of actors
    and
    means through
    which
    the
    SDGs are
    being
    tackled.
    Such
    contextual and theoretical
    breadth makes the grand
    challenges approach at once
    inclusive
    and
    potentially
    cumbersome.
    As
    a
    relatively
    nascent
    perspective,
    it
    may
    lack
    the
    clear
    identity needed to rally a cohesive group of scholars to rapidly
    advance thinking in this space.
    Further,
    grand
    challenges’ scope
    inevitably
    leads
    to
    a
    need
    for
    multidisciplinary,
    multimethod
    research
    that
    is
    often
    difficult
    to
    publish
    in
    academia,
    particularly
    within
    such
    long-
    established
    fields
    as
    sociology and economics
    (Ferraro
    et
    al.,
    2015).
    Though
    hybrid
    fields
    like
    strategy
    and
    entrepreneurship may more readily draw on multiple
    bodies of
    theory, the shared language problem and
    some
    of the
    more
    dogmatic
    institutional
    incentives
    may
    persist—at
    least
    indirectly—in
    restraining progress in
    cross-
    disciplinary scholarship, thereby perpetuating the gap between (social)
    science and sustainability practice
    (Banks
    et
    al.,
    2016;
    UN Environment,
    2018).
    While
    the grand challenges
    literature is relatively
    nascent,
    the managerial
    literature
    of the last
    few
    decades
    has
    cultivated
    a
    variety
    of
    subfields
    focusing
    on
    related,
    nontraditional
    forms
    of
    entrepreneurship.
    These nontraditional forms typically combine the profit motive with extra-
    fiduciary motivation and new logics. Three of these entrepreneurship lenses inform emerging
    advances in digital sustainability.
    Forms of Entrepreneurship
    Social entrepreneurship (SE) is probably the most studied form of nontraditional entrepreneurship.
    The literature
    focuses on the use of
    market-
    based methods
    to address social
    issues and
    create
    social
    value
    through the
    creative
    recombination
    of resources
    (Miller
    et al., 2012).
    Considerable debate persists about the nature and identity of the social entrepreneur, the tensions
    between social and commercial outcomes, and the definition of social value (Dacin et al., 2010;
    Saebi et al., 2019; Wry & York, 2017). Despite these debates, scholars generally agree social
    entrepreneurs deploy “a business logic in a novel and entrepreneurial way to improve the situation
    of
    segments
    of
    the
    population
    that
    are
    excluded,
    marginalized,
    or
    suffering
    and
    are
    themselves not capable of changing this situation”
    (Saebi
    et
    al.,
    2019, p. 1), while realizing
    business
    opportunities
    with
    priority
    given
    to
    social
    wealth
    creation
    versus economic
    wealth
    creation
    (Hollensbe
    et
    al.,
    2014;
    Mair & Martí,
    2006).
    Social
    entrepreneurs
    exhibit
    a
    willingness
    to
    subordinate
    the
    profit
    motive
    to
    selected
    prosocial
    objectives
    (Austin
    et
    al.,
    2006).
    While
    they
    often
    address widespread
    problems
    like
    poverty,
    malnutrition,
    and
    health,
    they
    typically
    do
    so
    in
    specific
    geographical
    contexts,
    which
    limit
    their
    ability
    to scale.
    Indicative
    studies have
    focused on
    organizational
    work to empower
    women
    (Datta &
    Gailey,
    2012), overcome poverty
    (Alvord
    et
    al.,
    2004),
    and
    expand
    access
    to
    finance
    to
    disadvantaged
    communities
    (Azmat
    et al., 2015). In these ends, an entrepreneur’s choice to
    deploy a for- profit or nonprofit model may hinge upon the focal social need and the nature of the
    George et al.
    5
    opportunity by which the firm can capture some of the produced value to survive (Peredo &
    McLean, 2006).
    Institutional entrepreneurship (IE) is rooted in institutional theory (DiMaggio, 1988) and
    a recognition of organizations’ embeddedness within their various social, economic, and
    political contexts. These contextual webs convey opportunities, costs, and benefits on market
    actors through constituent logics (Lounsbury & Boxenbaum, 2013) that in turn constrain and
    stabilize behavioral routines. DiMaggio (1988) identifies institutional entrepreneurs as actors
    who envision and enact new institutions as a means of advancing interests previously suppressed by incumbent logics.
    To illustrate, seminal work by
    Greenwood
    and
    Suddaby
    (2006)
    studies
    institutional
    work
    by
    the
    big
    five
    accounting
    firms
    who—while
    shaped
    by
    their
    context—enact changes to that context to pursue new aims.
    The work illuminates a “paradox
    of
    embedded agency” that has inspired
    Battilana and D’aunno
    (2009) to unpack “the
    tension
    between
    the
    notion
    of
    actors
    as
    strategic
    agents
    and
    the
    powerful
    influence
    of
    institutional
    forces
    on
    human
    agency”
    (p.
    96).
    A
    salient
    topic
    in
    IE
    is
    then
    the
    investigation
    of
    actors
    who
    become motivated and enabled to change the structures within which they are
    themselves
    embedded.
    This paradox proves especially
    salient
    in
    poorer,
    resource-
    deprived
    contexts
    marked
    by
    institutional
    voids.
    Here,
    entrepreneurs
    need
    first
    to
    build
    institutions
    from
    whole
    cloth
    before
    investing
    effort
    to
    reshape
    them
    to
    advance
    a
    given
    set
    of
    particular
    interests
    (Mair
    &
    Marti,
    2009;
    Stephan
    et
    al.,
    2015). Recent
    examples
    examine
    the
    role
    of
    collective
    emotions
    in
    shaping
    institutional
    change
    and rebuilding
    in the
    wake
    of a
    natural
    disaster
    (Farny
    et
    al.,
    2019) and
    the
    role
    of
    social
    movements in
    legitimizing and accelerating
    the market penetration
    of wind
    energy
    (Pacheco
    et
    al.,
    2014).
    Sustainable
    entrepreneurship (STE) is a more recent addition
    to entrepreneurial
    study amidst
    complex,
    social,
    and
    environmental
    problems
    (Shepherd
    &
    Patzelt,
    2011).
    While
    many
    large
    firms
    have
    built
    corporate
    social
    responsibility
    departments
    to
    generate
    prosocial
    outputs
    from
    a
    subset
    of
    firm
    activities
    while
    separating
    those
    activities
    from
    core
    processes
    since
    the
    definition
    of sustainable
    development
    in the
    Brundtland
    (1987),
    a
    smaller
    subset
    of
    firms
    have
    sought
    to
    incorporate
    prosocial
    choices
    into their
    core
    strategies,
    practices,
    and
    processes
    (Aragón-
    Correa
    & Sharma,
    2003;
    York
    et
    al.,
    2018). In this line,
    Hall
    et
    al.
    (2010) trace
    the
    emergence of STE in
    practice
    as a progression in firm orientation. This progression initially manifests in a shift in
    goal- setting away from reducing environmental impacts—doing less harm—and “going green”
    (Ambec & Lanoie, 2008) toward a more transformative commitment to correct a market failure
    at the crossroads of the economic, social, and environmental realm (Cohen & Winn, 2007). The
    most ambitious sustainable entrepreneurs then intentionally seek net positive environmental
    impacts (Levinsohn, 2011).
    In its mature form, STE may thus link together a heightened attention to improved processes
    with a triple bottom line to balance firm production of economic, social, and ecological value.
    Here, transformative change empowers a “systems view” of the firm in its socioecological context
    and
    a
    toolbox
    for
    sustainable
    impact.
    As
    sustainable
    entrepreneurs
    reshape
    capital
    structures
    and
    corporate
    cultures,
    they
    engender
    a
    growing population
    of
    organizations
    for whom the
    pursuit of sustainability
    has become a core economic opportunity and a way to
    forge novel
    capabilities
    (Bansal
    & Roth,
    2000).
    Hoogendoorn et al. (2017) identify sustainable entrepreneurs as
    those “who start a business to serve both self- interests and collective interests by addressing
    unmet social and environmental needs” (p. 1), capturing the field’s coalescing focus on not only
    the firm but also its founders and its mission.
    Table 1 provides an overview of the planetary boundaries perspective, the grand challenges
    approach, and the three nontraditional entrepreneurship lenses. The depiction indicates for each
    the primary focal actor or unit of analysis, the central actor’s commonly agreed- upon objective,
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    6
    and the essential means or behavior of that actor being studied. To this table we add the sixth lens
    of digital sustainability, which we will discuss later.
    Managerial Problems of Mitigating Climate Change and Advancing
    Sustainability
    Planetary boundaries, grand challenges, and the forms of entrepreneurship offer different toolkits
    with which to plot a course to impact. Planetary boundaries draw chiefly on the natural sciences
    while the other four lenses leverage diverging theoretical approaches (ways of thinking), attend
    to distinct sets of focal actors (areas of study), and explore various outcomes (research and organizational
    objectives). Yet, despite their differences, we believe these fields’ “raisons d’être”
    exhibits clear common cause. To produce impactful research, organizational scholars work to
    distil challenges into tractable managerial problems, capture their underlying causes, and link
    their engagement to practice.
    To support this effort, we next advance six managerial problems that undercut attempts to
    drive positive change toward sustainability, and whose study promises insights toward solutions.
    We select these problems (from among a potentially wider universe of options) as they conceptually
    align with the design elements
    that characterize
    the
    activity-
    system perspective
    on
    business models
    (Zott
    & Amit, 2010, p. 217). These authors define an “activity in a focal firm’s
    business model… as the engagement of human, physical, and/or capital resources of any party to
    the business model (the focal firm, end customers, vendors, etc.) to serve a specific purpose
    toward the fulfilment of the overall objective” and suggest that weaving such activities together
    is the essence of business model design (Zott & Amit, 2010). The activity- system perspective
    proposes three design elements: content, structure, and governance. These three align with the
    six sustainability challenges we highlight. What we know and how we value natural capital is the
    content of digital sustainability’s focus. Similarly, challenges with communication, coordination,
    and trust require the (re)structuring of organizations and markets in ways pioneered by digital
    sustainability activities. Finally, the governance aspect addresses the actors involved and exposes
    difficulties with reaching disenfranchised populations and the institutions that (fail to) govern
    sustainable development.
    We exclude from the analysis a wealth of problems that are less clearly related to business
    model design or are driven by local and regional differences that require a more contextual
    understanding These include but are not limited to issues of ethics, such as the question of
    anthropocentrism in utilitarian logics (who matters), and power, as regarding, for example, the
    means and legitimacy of actors who have established the rules of the game in which organizations operate from day to
    day.
    Problems of Knowing
    Much of the consumption underlying the global overshoot of planetary boundaries flows from
    two knowledge gaps. The first involves a failure to generate and disseminate valuable information concerning the condition of the natural biosphere on which civilization
    relies, as well as the
    types
    and
    magnitudes
    of
    impacts
    our
    behavior
    has
    on
    all
    forms
    of
    life.
    When
    prices
    fail
    to
    reflect
    the
    true
    costs of
    unsustainability, market
    participants
    too
    often
    remain
    unaware
    of the
    shadow
    costs
    of
    their
    choices.
    As
    such,
    they
    do
    not
    incorporate
    the
    real
    impacts
    of
    consumption
    and
    production
    choices
    into
    decision
    making.
    A
    lack
    of
    knowledge
    not
    only
    puts
    more
    sustainable
    goods
    and
    services at a disadvantage, it erodes the economy’s ability to efficiently husband Earth’s
    stock of social and natural capital.
    George et al.
    7
    In confronting problems of knowing and empowering more responsible patterns of produc-
    tion and exchange, organizations contend with a second and related type of knowledge gap
    concerning known unknowns and unknown unknowns. To illustrate the former, we can quantify
    annual global increases to the atmospheric carbon stock with a high degree of certainty. We can
    further detect, with great certainty, increases in global temperatures. Yet we confront much
    greater levels of uncertainty in apportioning emissions across countries and firms. To the latter,
    we further face “unknown unknowns” in quantifying thermal forcing from noncarbon- based
    greenhouse gases like methane, which may prove an enormous and increasing—though ill-
    understood—contributor to global warming (Dean et al., 2018). To take another case, computer
    models have made great headway mapping the likely impact of rising sea levels on coastal real
    estate (Bernstein et al., 2019), but have struggled to quantify the impacts of still poorly understood climate
    feedbacks
    and nonlinear
    changes
    to major
    earth
    systems
    (Bonan &
    Doney,
    2018)
    on
    near- future conditions. Even seemingly more solvable problems like finding out the root
    causes of bee hive collapse remain largely unsolved (Hallmann et al., 2017). These blind spots
    undermine efforts to establish the full set of factors underlying the true social cost of carbon and
    so calibrate a demonstrably science- based, rather than politically mandated, global carbon management
    system with which to preserve the value of one of
    Earth’s most valuable
    assets, a stable
    climate.
    Problems of Valuation
    As Dees (2017, p. 4) observes, “[i]t is inherently difficult to measure social value creation. How
    much social value is created by reducing pollution in a given stream, by saving the spotted owl,
    or by providing companionship to the elderly?” A key challenge in achieving sustainability
    involves quantifying the value of mitigating negative spillovers or producing marginal increases
    in shared socioecological value. Emerson notes in this light that “it has been taken as a virtual
    given that most elements of social value stand beyond measurement and quantification” (2003,
    p. 40), not in the least because of the difficulty of parsing the value of a single action’s contribution to an often harder to identify objective and
    beneficiary.
    Difficulty
    in quantifying socioecological value remains a central reason real costs remain
    hidden. Where calculations are expensive or contentious, not only do the true costs of unsustainability
    remain
    obscure,
    so
    too
    do
    the
    benefits
    of
    achieving
    discrete
    goals.
    Biologists
    have
    made
    progress
    establishing how much
    carbon
    one tree
    absorbs, and economists
    make
    strong
    arguments
    for
    quantifying
    how
    much
    dirty
    energy
    a
    solar
    array
    displaces.
    Yet
    firms
    that
    quantify
    changes
    to
    the rate
    of carbon emissions do so in the absence of broader agreement
    on the true cost of
    atmospheric carbon
    (Presse &
    Paetzhold,
    2018).
    Relatedly,
    entrepreneurs struggle to secure a
    consistent
    price
    for
    ecosystem
    services.
    While
    firms
    are
    starting
    to
    see
    success
    in
    measuring
    habitat
    gains
    by
    combining
    satellite
    sensing,
    AI,
    and
    machine
    learning,
    they
    still
    struggle
    to
    ascertain
    how
    much value society places on preventing a given species from going extinct.
    Where progress
    on
    assessing
    impacts
    fails
    to
    translate
    into
    consensus
    on
    valuing
    outcomes,
    firms
    face
    reduced
    incentives to bear certain opportunity costs to make risky investments in sustainability
    actions.
    Problems of Communication
    While better science may eventually inform a global carbon tax with the potential to obviate a
    portion of the valuation problem for carbon (e.g., Presse & Paetzhold, 2018), industries continue
    to generate massive, negative footprints in water (e.g., meat production), land (e.g., palm oil),
    and other forms of natural capital. Consumer products driving these “externalities” range from
    meat to chlorine bleach, dry cleaning chemicals, microfiber clothing, disposable razor blades,
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    8
    consumer electronics, and single- use plastics. Plastic waste in particular poisons marine ecosystems
    and
    consumers
    of
    seafood
    and
    shellfish
    the
    world
    over
    (Lebreton
    et
    al.,
    2017) and much of
    this
    waste
    stems from
    the
    “throw-
    away”
    products
    of a
    handful
    of multinationals
    who deploy
    vibrant social responsibility programs and espouse their commitment to
    sustainability.
    Yet
    even as
    impact
    valuation
    grows tractable,
    organizations
    working
    for
    sustainability
    may
    struggle
    to
    clearly
    communicate
    their
    value
    propositions
    to
    consumers,
    in
    effect
    struggling
    to
    market the
    value proposition of discrete and collective
    investments in socioecological
    value to a
    wider audience.
    This may in part result from the complexity
    of information related
    to
    sustainability
    efforts and the long range of their anticipated effects. Another problem involves humans’
    bounded rationality and limited attention spans and biological characteristics that lower consumers’
    willingness to invest
    scarce
    cognitive
    resources in
    unpacking multifarious
    value
    propositions
    soliciting
    concrete
    reallocations
    of
    day-
    to-
    day
    spending.
    This
    “friction”
    in
    the
    communication
    of
    socioecologically
    efficient
    opportunities
    is
    further
    exacerbated
    by
    the
    actions
    of
    unsustainable
    product producers who invest significant resources in
    counter-
    narratives.
    Problems of Coordination and Trust
    Coordination is often critical both for creating socioecological value and for capturing some of
    that value for communities. Key challenges include high costs of establishing sustainable patterns
    of
    exchange,
    forging
    agreements
    on
    valuing
    sustainability
    efforts,
    assessing
    an
    equitable
    distribution of that value among stakeholders, and enforcing those distributions
    (North,
    1991).
    Coordination costs
    are particularly
    pernicious for sustainable business
    due to the complexity
    of
    the
    socioecological
    systems
    in
    which
    organizations
    devise
    “impact
    projects.”
    Such
    projects
    often
    produce
    new shared value
    along
    multiple
    vectors
    (social,
    environmental,
    etc.).
    Organizations
    who
    work to coordinate these projects often bear significant and often difficult- to- anticipate
    coordination costs to quantify social value propositions, make these comparable to inform trade-
    offs among partners, and market outputs to stakeholders in a credible fashion.
    This last point, of credibility, resonates with the challenge of trust. Where trust is lacking,
    parties to a collective effort become exposed to risks of opportunistic behavior by collaborators.
    Not only does a sustainable business incur high coordination costs, it must credibly forgo the
    capture of the full value- add of work whose positive spillovers flow to third parties of the world
    at large. Implicit “sacrifice” of value by the organization leads to a situation in which entrepreneurs
    rely on subsidies, donations, and volunteers to offset the value- capture problem. Such
    reliance on altruistic support to cover the costs of coordinating economic behavior for creating
    and marketing socioecological value “further muddies the waters of market discipline” (Dees,
    2017, p. 37), as firms can no longer be expected to reach efficient investment levels based solely
    on utilitarian logics.
    Problems of Access and Reach
    Problems of access come in two complementary types: access to people and access for people.
    Sociopolitical issues “in the arenas of public discourse and action” underpin these two problems
    of access (Hilgartner & Bosk, 1988, pp. 53–54). Lack of access to people occurs when “not
    everyone has access to a product or service that is generally seen as a meaningful enhancer of
    social or economic wellbeing” (George et al., 2019, p. 14). Reaching people in the bottom of the
    pyramid (BoP)—living on less than $2/day—is often hard because common operational models
    fail to service hard- to- reach customers, leaving these markets unexploited. A lack of access
    results in exclusion from service (e.g., the digital divide) and from finance (e.g., being unbanked).
    Whereas problems of access to people describe challenges in provisioning, problems of access
    George et al.
    9
    for people change the perspective and describe challenges in institutionalized exclusion or social
    rules that exclude certain groups of people from drawing benefits from private or public goods.
    Where demographic characteristics like gender identity, religion, and race limit the access of
    certain groups to specific services and products, total welfare suffers due to an increase in both
    market inefficiency and injustice.
    For companies working on sustainability, access challenges reduce their ability to efficiently
    generate impact at scale. Lack of access to people at the BoP distances firms from those populations for whom the “bang for a buck” of impact
    spending is often highest, whose consumption
    decisions
    could well
    prove the
    most price
    sensitive
    (responsive to intervention),
    and whose
    day-
    to-
    day decisions (such as poaching endangered species for subsistence) have some of the most
    profound
    consequences
    for
    husbanding
    natural
    resources.
    Lack
    of
    access
    for
    the
    most
    vulnerable
    also reduces their ability
    to advocate
    for institutional
    change or otherwise improve connections
    between
    marginalized
    communities and the
    organizations
    and resources that
    often prove so
    critical to
    developing sustainable livelihoods and transferring the fruits of socioecological
    investments across
    boundaries.
    Problems of Institutions
    Institutional failures form an additional and systemic challenge for sustainability efforts. In many
    contexts, the weakness and/or corruption of governance regimes translate into profound disadvantages
    to
    firms
    who
    either
    work
    to
    internalize
    their
    own
    negative
    spillovers
    or
    call
    consumer
    attention
    to
    opportunistic
    behaviors by competitors.
    Where
    weak institutions
    allow
    regulatory
    capture
    to
    become
    the
    norm,
    even
    well-
    intentioned
    organizations
    struggle
    to
    convince
    stakeholders that
    contributing
    to the
    social good will
    not simply
    be exploited
    by competitors
    (e.g.,
    Pacheco
    et
    al.,
    2014;
    York
    et
    al.,
    2018). Nowhere is this dynamic
    clearer than in common pool resource
    management,
    as
    for
    public
    forests,
    fisheries,
    and
    shared
    watersheds.
    When
    institutions
    cannot
    place credible
    checks on exploitative
    behavior by private and
    state-
    owned
    organizations,
    any
    initiative
    to contribute to the public good will most likely devolve into an opportunistic windfall
    for
    predatory
    competition.
    From
    a
    race
    to
    the
    top,
    these
    environments
    deteriorate
    rapidly
    into
    a
    spiral of overconsumption and
    abuse.
    Finally, even when
    governments are not corrupt, limitations
    in capacity
    may leave
    many
    legitimate
    authorities unable
    to hold
    organizations
    to
    any meaningful
    regulatory
    standard.
    Highlighting
    the
    potentially
    catastrophic
    results
    of such challenges
    in
    governance,
    scientists
    recently
    concluded
    a
    swath
    of
    firms
    from
    various
    provinces
    in
    Eastern
    China
    have
    restarted
    mass-
    producing
    chlorofluorocarbons
    long
    banned
    under
    the
    Montreal
    Protocol
    (McGrath,
    2019), in
    spite
    of
    widespread
    regulation to
    enforce
    their moratorium.
    For the
    institutional
    actor, such limitations
    may
    be
    due
    to
    a
    lack
    either
    of
    capacity
    (and/or
    resources)
    to
    enforce
    rules
    or
    of
    sufficient
    information
    with
    which
    to
    identify
    rule-
    breakers.
    At
    the
    extreme,
    limitations
    in
    governance
    manifest
    as
    institutional voids, where the regulatory function de facto ceases to
    exist.
    Digital Toolkits and Business Model Innovations to Address
    Sustainability Problems
    The problems discussed earlier paint a sobering picture. Yet we propose that many of these problems
    can
    be
    meaningfully
    addressed
    through
    the
    deployment
    of exponential
    digital
    technologies
    that
    underpin
    new activities
    and new business models.
    Traditionally, responsibility
    for producing
    public
    goods (e.g., national
    parks, clean
    water) has fallen
    to the State,
    due to its ability
    to
    coordinate
    shared
    investments
    and
    prevent
    outsiders
    from
    freeriding
    on
    shared
    benefits.
    Now,
    entrepreneurial
    start- ups, nonprofit ventures, and incumbent organizations engaging in digital
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    10
    sustainability activities are tackling problems that were once the strict prerogative of governments,
    NGOs, and international
    agencies,
    pursuing a variety
    of objectives
    that
    principally
    relate
    to the preservation and regeneration of the natural
    world.
    If we follow the
    ecosystem-
    as-
    structure approach proposed by
    Adner
    (2017), we can interpret
    all
    organizations that are
    actively seeking to create
    public value by supporting and regenerating
    natural
    capital
    as
    nodes
    in
    a
    global,
    distributed
    ecosystem.
    In
    the
    absence
    of
    a
    central
    platform
    actor
    driving these activities,
    localized
    hot-
    pockets of decentralized
    production
    are
    increasingly,
    and
    jointly, pursuing common
    objectives.
    Digital
    sustainability
    activities
    regularly
    employ
    ecosystem
    architectures as force- multipliers. Actors devoted to digital sustainability support
    ecosystem- level coordination among disparate players, enabling them to work together toward
    shared objectives related to sustainable development. Horyou, the Regen Network, and Veridium
    are just a few examples of organizations operating in this manner.
    The technologies most commonly used in digital sustainability activities include distributed
    ledger technologies (blockchain), artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), Big Data
    Analytics, mobile technology and applications, sensors and other IOT devices, and other telemetry
    tools like
    satellites
    and drones.
    Table
    1 highlights
    key and distinguishing
    features
    of the
    digital
    sustainability
    lens,
    relative to established
    perspectives
    on planetary
    boundaries,
    grand
    challenges, and
    entrepreneurship.
    Of fundamental
    importance
    to the success of this ecosystem
    and its constituent
    actors
    is the
    low-
    cost
    scalability
    of
    exponential
    technologies.
    A
    capacity
    for
    replication
    makes
    digital
    toolkits
    resemble
    the
    scale-
    free resources described by
    Levinthal
    and
    Wu
    (2010). In addition,
    the open
    source
    and
    collaborative
    nature
    of
    many
    initiatives
    within
    the
    digital
    sustainability
    ecosystem
    further
    accelerates the scaling of coordination and trust. For instance, blockchains can help
    organizations
    sustain systems of shared value
    and exchange
    while
    remaining
    spatially
    unbound, such
    that loose networks of actors in diverse locations in the world can share and exchange material
    resources in their work to address a sustainability
    problem threatening
    current and especially
    future generations at a global
    scale.
    Digital
    sustainability
    activities
    are
    thus
    characterized
    by
    high
    scalability
    and
    ecosystem
    coordination.
    Together, these properties enable actors to break the trade- off between private and
    public value. Specifically, through digitization, it becomes possible to coordinate investments
    across a wide array of ecosystem- level actors, appropriate a portion of the residual benefits of
    public goods, and enable the broader market to value the impacts of socioecological
    investments.
    For instance, when a public forest is tokenized, tokens can represent the preservation and/or
    production of ecosystem services—including carbon sequestration—to which token holders in
    the wider market can lay legitimate claims and trade these claims in markets for ecosystem services.
    Tokenization
    drives a productive wedge between public ownership and private benefit
    appropriation (in terms of “bragging rights”) while the most important benefits (in terms of climate
    stabilization)
    remain
    public.
    Discrete
    claims
    are
    similar
    to emission
    rights, but rather
    than
    incentivizing
    a
    one-
    off
    cash-
    out
    for
    a
    forest
    sponsor
    or
    donor,
    tokens
    represent
    long-
    term,
    fungible investments in shared
    natural capital.
    Further, ecosystem players who cocreate
    the platform
    on which the tokenization
    occurs can share in the reputational
    gains of solving a sustainability
    problem of coordinating investments in public
    forests.
    To illustrate in greater depth how digital
    sustainability
    is already beginning to make headway
    in the world, we next discuss six pathways we consider instrumental
    in tackling
    the challenges
    we face.
    Table
    2 reviews the six managerial
    problems and links them to digital
    sustainability
    pathways that
    organizations
    can use to shape socioecological
    outcomes.
    We discuss each
    pathway
    separately, illustrate
    relevant,
    enabling
    innovations
    of the
    digital
    toolbox,
    and
    provide
    examples of noteworthy activities and
    actors.
    George et al.
    T able 1. Five Phenomenological Lenses That Address Social and Environmental Challenges.
    Lens
    Actor/Unit
    Objective
    Means
    Study Examples
    • Mitigation, policy for damage
    reduction,
    Planetary boundariesNatural ecosystems, biomes,
    political actors
    T o ensure humanity does
    not transgress planetary
    boundaries (ideally by
    staying in the safe operating
    space)
    Rockström et al. (2009); Steffen
    et al. (2018)
    geo- engineering
    Grand challenges
    • Social, institutional, development, and
    sustainable entrepreneurship
    Broad: incumbents, partners,
    supply chains, government,
    community
    Solving complex, tractable
    problems that require
    coordinated effort (e.g.,
    sustainable development
    goals)
    • Private sector involvement in SDGs
    George et al. (2016); Mair et al.
    (2016); Reinecke and Ansari
    (2016); Vakili and McGahan
    (2016)
    • Capability development
    • Creative recombination of resources
    Social
    entrepreneurship
    New for- profit and nonprofit
    enterprises and their
    founders
    Social value creation. T ypically
    locally embedded with a
    focus on current, ongoing
    social issues. Limited intent
    to appropriate private value
    • Economic value capture to ensure
    financial viability
    Dacin et al. (2010); Mair and Martí
    (2006); Miller et al. (2012);
    Peredo and McLean (2006);
    Saebi et al. (2019)
    • Linear scaling
    • Geographically constrained
    Institutional
    entrepreneurship
    Individuals, corporations
    • Institutional work to alter norms,
    culture, and practices
    Institutional change and filling
    of institutional voids, often
    as a means to a separate
    (higher order) end being
    commercial, social, or
    environmental
    • Escaping the paradox of embedded
    agency
    Battilana and D’aunno (2009);
    DiMaggio (1988); Farny et al.
    (2019); Greenwood and
    Suddaby (2006); Mair and
    Marti (2009); Pacheco et al.
    (2014)
    Sustainable
    entrepreneurship
    Individual corporations and
    nonprofits
    Solving socioecological
    market failures to produce
    commercial, social, and
    environmental value
    • T ransformative change in focus to
    triple bottom line
    • Process orientation
    • Strategic balancing
    Cohen and Winn (2007); Hall
    et al. (2010); Hoogendoorn
    et al. (2017); Levinsohn (2011);
    Shepherd and Patzelt (2011);
    Y ork et al. (2018)
    (Continued)
    11
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    12
    T able 1. Continued
    Lens
    Actor/Unit
    Objective
    Means
    Study Examples
    • Digital technologies like blockchain,
    AI/ML, IOT , and Big Data
    Digital sustainabilityOrganizational activities
    within the planetary
    ecosystem
    Create socioecological value as
    a core part of an economic
    value proposition
    Recognition of faster feedback
    loops makes it easier to
    establish causal effects.
    Long- term public value
    creation
    Merrill et al. (2019)
    • Scaling to remedy tragedy of the
    commons
    • Breaking economic value/
    sustainability trade- off
    • Spatially unbound
    George et al.
    T able 2. Managerial Problems and Digital Sustainability Pathways.
    Managerial Problems in
    Sustainability
    Issues
    Digital Sustainability
    Pathways
    Digital T oolbox
    Exemplary Ventures
    Problems of knowing
    Information gaps and blind spots
    Codifying observationInstrumentation
    Envirate, Planet, Saildrone
    Problems of valuation
    Profitable externalities and freeridingImproving liquidity
    T okenization PacketizationPoseidon, Swytch
    Problems of communication
    Short termism and bounded rationalityFacilitating attention
    Gamification SimplificationAnt Forest, Ecosia
    Problems of coordination and trustMoral hazard and transaction costsEmbedding verificationSmart contracting and
    layering
    Efforce, DiMuto
    Problems of access and reach
    Exclusion and asymmetries of powerEmpowering people
    Re- intermediation
    Olam, hiveonline
    Problems of institutions
    Institutional voids and corruption
    Fortifying infrastructureDigitizing institutions
    Arbol, Democracy Earth
    13
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    14
    Codifying Observations to Address Problems of Knowing
    New use- cases for technologies that enable short- and long- distance observation empower actors
    to collect high- resolution data on specific natural biomes and their interactions with wider ecosystems.
    These telemetry tools help firms observe and quantify aspects of nature, distil new
    knowledge on the functioning of complex socioecological systems, and codify those observations into instruments and insights to guide action. By making these insights available
    across the
    value
    chain,
    firms
    may
    succeed
    in
    both
    creating
    and
    capturing
    a
    portion
    of
    new
    socioecological
    value.
    Key
    technologies
    range
    from
    satellites,
    drones,
    and
    the
    IOT
    to
    technology-
    assisted
    citizen
    science.
    These
    tools
    fill
    knowledge
    gaps
    and
    mitigate
    blind
    spots
    and
    improve
    the
    quality
    and
    quantity
    of knowledge
    with
    which decision
    makers
    may
    assess business risks and
    market
    failures
    relevant to the balanced production of economic, social, and ecological
    value.
    Nascent ventures have started to use such tools to codify observations about the natural world
    to produce shared value.
    Planet
    Labs operates
    an armada
    of
    micro-
    satellites
    that
    provides “ultra
    high
    frequency, high resolution monitoring
    [which] is taking
    Earth science
    to a completely
    new
    level”
    (Greg
    Asner,
    lead
    scientist
    at
    the
    Carnergie
    Airborne
    Observatory).
    1
    Saildrone builds and
    operates a growing fleet of unmanned drones that sail around our oceans independently, collecting
    high-
    resolution atmospheric
    and deep oceanic
    data to disrupt a market traditionally
    reliant
    on
    expensive buoys and manned vessels.
    Envirate uses
    people’s sensory inputs (seeing, feeling,
    and
    smelling)
    to
    rate
    how humans
    experience
    the
    natural
    world through
    a
    simple
    smart
    phone
    application.
    After
    codifying
    raw
    observational
    data,
    the
    second
    step
    these
    organizations
    take
    entails
    turning data into tangible information and instruments to inform
    decision-
    making.
    Using
    advanced
    machine
    learning,
    Planet
    Labs
    has
    trained
    algorithms
    to
    correlate
    the
    spatial
    structure
    of
    private
    satellite
    data
    to
    the
    very
    detailed
    and
    expensive
    LiDAR
    data.
    They
    thus
    created
    low-
    cost
    indicators
    of how
    earth’s natural
    capital
    evolves
    over time.
    Saildrones
    are
    equipped
    with
    over
    40
    sensors
    to
    track
    fish
    and
    mammal
    populations,
    map
    sea
    beds,
    and
    monitor
    temperatures,
    currents,
    and
    hurricane
    intensities.
    The
    company
    turns these
    data
    into
    quasi-
    real-
    time
    information
    feeds to facilitate
    clients’ decision
    making.
    Envirate
    turns
    crowd-
    sourced
    information
    into
    open
    access
    codified
    heat
    maps
    of
    the
    earth,
    over
    time
    demarcating
    zones
    of
    environmental improvement and
    degradation.
    All
    these
    organizations
    share
    a
    goal
    to
    create
    nonappropriated
    value
    by
    making
    their
    activities
    and
    instruments
    available
    to
    a
    wider
    ecosystem.
    Planet
    Labs’
    “Ambassador
    Program”
    brings
    its
    observation
    tools
    to
    the
    scientific
    community
    to
    help
    investigate
    important
    socioecological
    questions.
    In
    an
    interview
    with
    the
    authors,
    Saildrone’s
    Liz
    Douglas
    told
    us
    that
    the
    company
    always
    asks
    itself
    “what
    is
    the
    scientific
    purpose
    of
    this
    job?”
    If
    the
    answer
    is
    missing
    or
    unclear
    (i.e.,
    if
    public
    value
    creation
    is
    low),
    they
    just
    won’t
    do
    it.
    By
    collaborating
    with
    incumbents,
    Envirate
    inspires the
    allocation of resources for CSR programs to areas with the highest possible impact
    rather than those with the lowest political
    hurdles.
    Improving Liquidity to Tackle Problems of Valuation
    Digital sustainability activities also entail the use of emerging technologies to create new markets
    for
    ecological
    public
    goods
    and
    services
    that
    were
    previously
    prohibitively
    difficult
    to
    measure
    and/or
    exchange.
    Two
    interesting
    elements
    in
    the
    digital
    toolbox
    that
    support
    new
    market
    formation
    are
    tokenization
    and
    packetization.
    The
    former
    refers to the
    application
    of a digital
    proxy, such as a blockchain
    token, to represent
    a previously amorphous unit of natural
    capital.
    The
    latter, often
    employed
    as a
    supplement
    to
    tokenization,
    describes
    a
    process of bundling
    data
    into
    small
    packets
    that
    contain
    valuable
    information
    and enable
    a much
    greater
    distribution
    of
    risk
    and
    ownership.
    Singaporean
    start-
    up
    Maecenas
    for
    instance
    tokenizes
    and
    sells
    49.9%
    of
    an
    George et al.
    15
    art work’s ownership rights to people who want to own a tiny fragment of a masterpiece, expecting
    greater
    resale
    value
    in
    the
    future.
    Together, tokenization
    and
    packetization
    allow
    businesses
    to
    render
    natural
    capital
    into
    well-
    defined,
    small,
    fungible,
    and
    tradeable
    units,
    for
    which
    new
    markets can set prices (e.g., for
    commons-
    destroying spillovers) and generate
    rewards for
    investing in ecological public
    goods.
    Poseidon,
    a
    Malta-
    based
    foundation,
    is
    tokenizing
    carbon
    credits
    from
    conservation
    programs
    in
    the
    Andean
    rainforest
    onto
    the
    Stellar
    blockchain
    and
    packetizing
    those
    credits
    into
    “carbon
    by the gram.”
    Swytch
    tracks,
    verifies,
    and
    tokenizes
    renewable
    energy
    produced
    and
    associated
    avoided
    carbon
    emissions.
    Both
    groups packetize
    valuable
    provenance
    information
    into
    their
    tokens
    and
    then
    sell
    them
    to
    interested
    parties.
    Poseidon
    specifically
    focuses
    on
    enabling
    micro-
    transactions
    to
    offset
    the
    footprint
    of
    retail
    products
    and
    services,
    such
    as
    filling
    up
    a
    tank
    of
    gasoline,
    in a bid to help
    consumers attain
    “carbon-
    neutral”
    consumption.
    The foundation
    for
    instance
    partnered
    with
    Ben
    &
    Jerry’s
    ice
    cream
    and
    ultra-
    fast
    vehicle
    manufacturer
    BAC,
    which
    now
    offsets double its production emissions through Poseidon and helps clients offset miles
    driven during their yearly maintenance.
    2
    By packetizing granular data on energy production, including exactly what was produced and
    where, when, and how much carbon emissions have been displaced by a unit of renewable power,
    Swytch gives token buyers increased flexibility and accuracy when claiming attribution for carbon reductions
    in their
    sustainability
    reporting.
    Both
    Poseidon and Swytch thus support the
    transition
    to
    a
    postcarbon
    economy
    by
    adding
    liquidity
    for consumers
    and
    producers
    of
    environmental
    benefits
    (carbon credits and kilowatt hours of renewable power). Swytch leverages a very
    advanced AI system to allocate a value to each kilowatt hours of renewable energy by accounting
    for factors including risk, institutional capacity, and availability of alternative supplies, ensuring
    that higher risk projects receive higher rewards to support a more efficient market evolution.
    Facilitating Attention to Confront Problems of Communication
    Because the meta- challenge of sustainability is so complex and fast evolving, consumers often
    feel their efforts are meaningless or lack awareness of where their energies may be best directed.
    In response, some firms now leverage digital tools to communicate simple, engaging sustainability
    messages to large populations. These activities often build on processes of gamification,
    transposing prosustainability behaviors into fun, social, and competitive environments. By contextualizing
    users’
    sacrifices
    and
    micro-
    commitments
    within
    an
    encouraging
    game,
    new
    ventures
    along these lines may not only generate
    impactful
    behavioral
    change, but also develop a more
    engaged
    user-
    base
    through
    the
    repeated
    and
    paired
    provision
    of
    a
    simple,
    yet
    laudable,
    service
    and a
    clear, environmental
    message.
    As
    an
    example
    of
    gamification,
    Ant
    Forest
    is
    a
    green
    initiative
    within
    the
    Chinese
    payment
    and
    lifestyle
    application
    AliPay.
    Ant
    Forest
    has
    evolved
    into
    a
    social
    game
    that
    tracks
    and
    rewards
    green lifestyles (e.g., walking to work,
    paying bills online, taking the metro etc.) with
    “energy
    points” representing grams of carbon saved.
    Energy points have become valuable
    commodities
    users can
    spend to plant
    and nourish digital
    trees
    or sponsor land
    conservation.
    To ensure
    consistent
    engagement,
    Ant
    Forest
    allows
    users
    to
    steal
    small
    amounts
    of
    energy
    from
    friends
    or
    help
    water
    friends’
    digital
    trees.
    The
    parent
    company,
    Ant
    Financial,
    plants
    a
    real-
    life
    tree
    for
    each
    digital
    tree
    a
    user
    raises
    to
    maturity.
    Since
    2016,
    Ant
    Forest
    has
    increased
    customer
    satisfaction
    and
    strengthened
    Ant
    Financial’s
    brand
    identity
    as
    a
    global
    leader
    in
    sustainable
    finance,
    while
    planting
    500
    million
    trees
    in
    Inner
    Mongolia.
    By
    October
    2018,
    Ant
    Forest
    reports
    almost
    400
    million regular
    users.
    Another
    form
    of
    facilitating
    attention
    involves
    simplification,
    a
    process
    of
    effortlessly
    embedding
    a
    prosustainability
    impact
    in
    a
    daily
    activity.
    A
    fine
    example
    is
    Ecosia, a search engine that
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    16
    uses 80% of its advert revenue to plant trees to fight global warming. Since its launch in 2009,
    Ecosia and its user community report planting over 61,000,000 trees in Ethiopia, Brazil,
    Indonesia, and Spain. Ecosia differentiates itself from market leaders by establishing sustainability as its core business
    logic and value proposition. In the
    company’s
    own
    words: “we’re
    interested in trees, not your data.” Ecosia enables users to contribute
    to tree planting by simply
    installing
    Ecosia
    as
    their
    default
    search
    engine.
    A
    comparable
    tool
    is
    “Tab
    for
    a
    Cause”
    from
    the
    company
    Gladly, Inc.
    This simple plugin shows
    users a beautiful
    landscape and advertising each
    time
    they open a new tab
    in
    their Internet
    browser and donates 30% of
    add-
    revenue
    to one of nine
    charities
    based on a
    user’s
    choice. Not
    surprisingly,
    Tab for a Cause has made
    it easy to integrate
    Ecosia into all new tabs, helping users double their impact with zero new
    effort.
    Embedding Verification to Counter Problems of Coordination and
    Trust
    Organizations are employing digital tools to reduce transaction costs and moral hazard in sustainable
    supply
    chains.
    Many
    key
    technologies
    in
    this
    space
    are
    similar
    to
    those
    being
    used
    to
    solve problems of valuation,
    with a heightened
    focus on solving coordination
    problems in the
    production and distribution of shared value. Pioneering
    organizations in digital sustainability
    are
    now
    embedding
    verification
    processes
    within
    the
    architecture
    of
    exchange
    systems.
    Embedding
    verification
    enables
    diverse
    market
    players
    to
    engage
    in
    arm’s
    length—and
    often
    trustless—buying and selling with
    much-
    reduced risks of freeriding and opportunism. Key innovations include
    smart-
    contracting
    (hardcoding
    terms
    of
    trade
    into
    transaction
    flows
    to
    automate
    business
    logics)
    and
    layering, a process of digitizing evidence of (sustainable) provenance for storage within
    immutable, tamper- proof ledgers. These tools promise to solve adverse selection problems that
    have disadvantaged superior, sustainable products in open markets.
    A key challenge in economic exchange, especially in international trade, involves ensuring
    the quality and provenance of goods purchased from sellers at the far side of the world. DiMuto,
    a Singaporean start- up, is addressing this challenge by restructuring fruit and vegetable trade
    using digitized trade papers and a blockchain- based, track- and- trace system running from farm
    to fork. By on- chaining trade operations between multiple players, DiMuto produces a dynamic
    log of agreements, contracts, store locations, delivery times, and transfer points. This reduces
    risks of fraudulent data flow and allows for faster identification of volume, quality, and origin
    discrepancies. By linking smart locks and temperature sensors to the DiMuto platform, the system
    also
    provides
    quasi-
    real-
    time
    updates
    about
    the
    state
    of
    the
    cold
    chain.
    The
    private
    value
    of
    the
    platform
    thus involves
    reducing
    trade
    frictions,
    whereas
    the
    public
    value
    lies
    in
    reducing
    energy
    loss
    and
    food
    waste
    while
    providing
    verification
    tools
    to
    support
    a
    transparent
    “race
    to
    the
    top” in fruit production.
    The new platform
    also helps
    small-
    scale farmers to access
    inventory-
    based finance and insurance, reducing risks and helping them plan strategic
    investments.
    Efforce is a
    blockchain-
    based
    energy-
    saving
    trading
    platform
    seeking
    to
    revolutionize
    the
    market
    for
    Energy
    Performance Contracting (EPC) for infrastructure upgrades that reduce
    energy costs. An energy service company (ESCO) proposes improvements to an industrial facility,
    which
    are
    then
    financed
    by
    a
    finance
    partner.
    The
    facility
    pays
    back
    the
    ESCO
    and
    finance
    partner based on
    energy savings. EPC regularly returns 20%–25% in
    energy savings and
    promises
    20%–25% returns for financing partners. Yet uncertainty about moral hazard (including
    cheating, underreporting of savings etc.) has kept the EPC market small relative to its potential.
    EFFORCE now retrofits facilities’ smart meters with an algorithm that outbounds contract-
    encoded tokens reporting energy savings unto a public ledger, thereby ensuring reliable verification which
    facilitates
    the coordination
    of economic
    action
    and improves the functioning
    of the
    EPC
    market.
    George et al.
    17
    Empowering People to Reduce Problems of Access and Reach
    Digital sustainability activities can be used to increase access and reach in ways that promise to
    empower previously disenfranchised communities that often lack access to formal, efficient markets.
    This exclusion
    is one of the principal
    reasons why it is so often expensive
    to be
    poor.
    Innovations driven by digital technologies can balance power and information asymmetries to
    underpin business solutions at the “base of the pyramid.”
    Solutions manifest
    both at the supply
    side (to empower
    small-
    scale
    production)
    and at
    the
    demand
    side (to better
    reach
    customers
    and
    consumers).
    At
    the
    supply
    side,
    Olam, an agribusiness multinational
    based in Singapore, is working to
    digitize
    the
    origination
    process for crops like
    cocoa
    across its global
    network.
    By
    equipping
    small-
    scale
    farmers with mobile
    phones armed
    with a digital
    sales platform,
    Olam
    cuts out
    price-
    setting
    middlemen
    and
    provides higher
    prices
    to
    farmers.
    To develop
    this platform,
    Olam
    managers used a
    user-
    centric
    design-
    thinking
    method to learn
    from farmers what the
    value-
    add of
    middlemen
    is
    (largely
    assessing crop
    value
    and
    estimating
    transaction
    costs)
    and
    how it
    would
    need to adjust its supply chain operations
    to prioritize
    minimal
    disruption at the farmer level.
    In
    collaboration
    with scientists, they digitized
    the valuation
    of cocoa based on moisture
    content
    using image
    recognition
    and
    machine
    learning
    so that
    they
    could
    create
    a
    real-
    time
    pricing
    tool
    that would make earnings for farmers more predictable
    and pricing
    more transparent
    and less
    susceptible
    to the
    bargaining
    and haggling power of
    middlemen.
    Via digital
    re-
    intermediation,
    Olam can now pay farmers more, improve the stability
    of
    supply, and widen
    margins while
    encouraging digital
    “lock-
    in” to their digital platform (Olam
    Direct).
    On the demand
    side,
    hiveonline is a digital
    exchange
    system for the unbanked.
    The Danish
    start-
    up provides a contracting
    and accounting
    system for formal
    and informal,
    generally
    unbanked,
    microbusinesses
    that
    enables
    reputation
    building,
    social
    network
    verification
    using
    phone records for KYC,
    and tokenization
    of natural capital
    assets.
    The overarching goal is to
    provide
    digital
    proof
    of
    creditworthiness
    and
    thusly
    expand
    access
    to
    finance
    and
    employment
    for
    impoverished
    communities.
    In
    Niger,
    hiveonline’s platform
    intermediates
    between
    community-
    lending
    circles
    who
    lack
    access
    to
    financial
    services
    and
    Village
    Savings
    and
    Loan
    Associations.
    Through
    their
    technology,
    they
    can
    help
    their
    financial
    partners
    reduce
    risk
    and
    empower local
    businesses.
    Fortifying Infrastructure to Lessen Problems of Institutions
    Last, digital sustainability organizations can fill institutional voids and reduce agency costs in the
    generation of sustainable value. Institutional voids can arise from trust problems rooted in corruption
    and
    other
    failures
    of institutions
    and
    governance.
    By fortifying
    existing
    or
    developing
    novel
    digital
    infrastructures
    in
    a
    decentralized
    and/or
    peer-
    to-
    peer
    way,
    organizations
    are
    providing new goods and services or ensuring rights and titles. Key innovations include blockchain
    to
    support trustless exchange, the collateralization
    of social capital,
    and mechanisms for building
    consensus.
    By digitizing
    institutions, these technology and business
    model innovations allow
    organizations
    to solve governance
    failures
    and allow
    new and existing
    markets
    to reduce
    dead
    weight loss and expand socioecological
    surplus.
    Arbol
    is pioneering a global, location- specific, peer- to- peer index insurance market using
    blockchain, smart contracts, and public weather data. The platform addresses unmet needs of
    farmers whose livelihoods hinge on local events like droughts and heat waves and for whom
    existing insurance products are ill- suited due to inflexible terms and prices driven by large US
    agrobusinesses. Arbol’s tokenized smart contracts are transparent and cost effective (no human
    interaction), paying out a preset amount whenever an agreed- upon weather threshold is reached
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    18
    Figure 1. Stylistic model of digital sustainability.
    to replace output ambiguity (i.e., damage) with input alignment (e.g., more than 125 ml of rainfall
    in
    a
    3-
    month
    period).
    As
    a
    P2P
    platform,
    Arbol
    also
    enables
    anyone
    to
    enter
    as
    an
    underwriter
    and absorb counterparty
    risk by trading in a new asset class, which is why the platform
    has been
    appealing
    to
    both
    classic
    insurance
    companies
    that
    find
    new
    ways
    of
    underwriting
    local
    risks
    and
    to hedge fund managers looking for new asset classes that
    are uncorrelated
    from major
    markets.
    Tokenized
    contracts
    can also be traded
    on a secondary
    exchange,
    ensuring underlying
    capital
    remains liquid during the contract
    period.
    Ukraine has followed in
    Georgia’s and
    Sweden’s footsteps to develop
    a land registry for its
    farm land on the blockchain,
    after recognizing
    that “its current system is vulnerable
    to fraud that
    leads
    to
    conflict
    over
    ownership”
    (Verbyany,
    2017). In places
    like
    Ukraine,
    where
    trust
    in
    the
    government
    may be
    low, such solutions
    can
    enhance
    transparency and
    ensure that
    no illicit
    activities
    underpin
    the
    auctions
    of
    state
    land
    leases.
    Democracy
    Earth
    is
    a
    nonprofit
    technology
    company
    that
    built
    a
    platform
    that
    helps
    others
    build
    democratic,
    transparent,
    and
    incorruptible
    decision
    processes for
    organizations.
    The
    organization
    has broad
    goals
    that
    all
    fall
    under
    the
    hat
    of personal
    sovereignty, including returning ownership of user data on social platforms to the
    people, online, anonymous, and incorruptible
    voting, which enables quadratic voting as well as
    vote delegation to more erudite or more able people
    (Jacomet & Deville,
    2017).
    To summarize,
    we present a stylistic
    model
    (Figure
    1) of how digital
    technologies
    are being
    used to tackle
    climate
    change and to boost
    sustainability.
    This model connects the six problems
    we
    identified
    as
    fundamental
    causes
    of
    our
    limited
    ability
    to
    achieve
    sustainability
    objectives
    to
    the
    proposed digital
    sustainability
    pathways that
    tackle
    each
    problem
    through the
    digital
    toolbox.
    The
    objective
    of
    digital
    sustainability
    activities
    is
    to
    create
    highly
    scalable
    market
    offerings
    that
    directly improve socioecological
    outcomes.
    A Research Agenda on Digital Sustainability and Entrepreneurship
    We reviewed the planetary boundaries approach and four managerial lenses and presented digital
    sustainability as its own idiosyncratic lens with a unique combination of focal units of analysis
    (organizational activities), objectives (focus on sustainability and socioecological value creation),
    and
    means (spatially
    unbound, scalable
    deployment
    of digital
    technologies).
    These
    lenses
    George et al.
    19
    are a selection of the approaches present in our field that investigate questions of global importance
    in relation
    to
    sustainability. In entrepreneurship
    for instance,
    an additional
    yet scarcely
    developed lens is the one of development
    entrepreneurship
    as an integration
    of institutional,
    social, and business
    entrepreneurship
    (McMullen,
    2011). In order to stimulate
    debate and invite
    our
    colleagues to join conversations about how digital
    technologies are transforming
    the way
    organizations
    tackle
    sustainable
    development,
    we introduce
    a
    variety
    of other
    perspectives
    and
    possible
    research questions in
    Table
    3.
    While
    the
    first
    two
    rows
    stem
    from
    topics
    discussed
    earlier, the next four are briefly introduced in the
    below.
    Social Movements for Sustainability
    Social movement theory has also been used as a lens to discuss sustainability topics such as
    degrowth (Demaria et al., 2013), climate justice (Pettit, 2004), and climate change more generally
    (Jamison,
    2010). Relevant
    social movements
    manifest as more loosely
    organized entities
    that,
    while lacking the formal organizational structure of entrepreneurial firms, nevertheless
    strive toward similar goals as social or sustainability entrepreneurs. To take an extreme example,
    a growing chorus of scientists now argue—based on the scientific evidence—the inevitability of
    catastrophic global warming and at least partial societal collapse (Bendell, 2018). Humanity’s
    increasingly dire position has inspired a growing array of loosely coupled social movements
    such as the “Extinction Rebellion” movement in the United Kingdom to refocus people’s professional and personal life on deep adaptation through resilience, relinquishment, and
    restoration.
    From a
    digital
    sustainability
    angle,
    it
    would be
    valuable
    to
    study how social
    movements
    use
    digital
    technologies
    to expand
    and activate
    their
    user base to
    achieve
    their
    ends and
    whether
    such
    social
    movements
    behave
    differently
    from
    engaged
    corporate
    stakeholder
    communities.
    While
    quantitative
    data around these types of loosely coupled
    organizations may be hard to come
    by,
    in-
    depth
    case
    studies
    of
    activist
    organizations
    like
    “Avaaz”
    or
    problem-
    focused
    organizations
    like “charity:
    water” would be of interest,
    given that both have excelled
    at leveraging
    digital
    and
    mobile
    technologies
    to
    boost
    the
    size
    and
    concomitant
    power
    of
    their
    community.
    Comparative
    studies between
    social
    movements,
    digital
    sustainability
    actors, and corporate
    actors that
    all seek
    to address a similar problem would be of great
    interest.
    Business Model Innovation and Ecosystems
    Our conceptualization of digital sustainability as a new lens that explicitly focuses on activities
    undertaken within a larger ecosystem that works toward the achievement of the SDGs marries
    the business model approach advocated by Zott and Amit (2010) with the ecosystem- as- structure
    approach proposed by Adner (2017). Adner (2017) starts from an overarching value proposition
    that can only be accomplished by a multitude of interdependent activities that are performed by
    a diverse set of actors. Zott and Amit (2010) see the business model as an activity system that
    consists of content (in terms of value proposition), structure (how activities interact), and governance (who
    is leading and who
    is involved).
    An
    activity
    is
    the engagement
    of resources “by any
    party to the business model,”
    thus including
    stakeholders,
    buyers, and suppliers, “to serve a
    specific purpose toward the fulfillment of the overall objective” (p.
    217).
    Looking
    at organizations as constellations of activity systems, some of which fit into an
    ecosystem- as- structure that seeks to achieve the SDGs, is challenging but relevant from the
    nexus perspective that stresses the interlinkages between all types of activities in the achievement
    of sustainability
    goals
    (Bock &
    George,
    2018;
    Schillebeeckx et al., 2018). Activity-
    centricity also opens up the possibility that some actors are fully embedded within the ecosystem
    while others only have one activity in this ecosystem. This possibility of partial affiliation raises
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    20
    Table 3. Avenues for Future Research in Digital Sustainability.
    Research Areas
    Sustainability Pathways
    Exemplary Research Questions
    Nontraditional
    entrepreneurship
    Fortifying infrastructure
    Codifying observations
    • What is the role of sustainability intrapreneurs
    within existing multilateral agencies such as
    the UN or the World Bank?
    • When and how can digital sustainability (DS)
    disrupt structures or institutional constraints?
    Contextualizing
    managerial problems
    Facilitating attention
    Empowering people
    Fortifying infrastructure
    Codifying observation
    • Can we quantify and compare the salience
    of the organizing problems of DS across
    countries and regions? For example, when
    do the problems of knowing and problems of
    Improving liquidity
    valuation become more important relative to
    Embedding verification
    other managerial problems?
    • Does culture shape the effect of organizing
    problems on the likelihood of achieving
    SDGs? Which cultural dimensions (normative,
    cognitive, and material) have a strong
    influence?
    • What are the ethical drivers of individual
    actors in DS?
    Social movements for
    sustainability
    Facilitating attention
    Empowering people
    Fortifying infrastructure
    • Are social movements more or less effective
    in deploying digital technologies?
    • Which forms of engagement in DS are more
    likely to be achieved by social movements?
    • What can for- profit companies learn from the
    DS approach of social movements?
    • Can social movements organize effectively to
    achieve SDGs?
    Business model innovation
    and ecosystems
    Codifying observation
    Improving liquidity
    Embedding verification
    • Do organizations benefit from partially or fully
    embedding themselves in the sustainability
    ecosystem? How do DS actors relate to
    organizational identity?
    • What are the characteristics of profitable DS
    business models? Which ecosystem activities
    are more likely to generate financial returns?
    • Which new business models are developed
    to capture value by addressing organizing
    problems? For example, does information
    transparency increase customer premiums?
    Legal and nonmarket
    approaches
    Fortifying infrastructure
    • How can firms leverage legal and nonmarket
    strategies to change the institutions?
    • When and why do legal and nonmarket
    strategies change the behavior of competitors?
    • Which government interventions are likely to
    be challenged by DS entrepreneurs?
    (Continued)
    George et al.
    21
    Table 3. Continued
    Research Areas
    Sustainability Pathways
    Exemplary Research Questions
    Trust
    Embedding verification
    Empowering people
    • Can trust be commoditized through
    technology? What are its implications for trade
    and for economic activity in institutional voids?
    How does commodification affect innovation
    outcomes and organizational structures?
    • How do trusted transaction systems influence
    the value of intermediaries and reputation?
    • What is the role of the multisided market
    makers if trust becomes a technological
    commodity?
    interesting questions as to how organizations deal with conflicting logics (Purdy & Gray, 2009;
    Zhao & Lounsbury, 2016), how external audiences evaluate partial category membership
    (Durand & Paolella, 2013; Hsu et al., 2009), and how actors whose activities are fully embedded
    within the ecosystem perceive the activities of those who straddle ecosystem boundaries
    (Rossignoli et al., 2018).
    Legal and Nonmarket Approaches
    We identified six managerial problems that underpin the current climate and sustainability crisis
    and presented pathways to tackle these issues rooted in the creative deployment of digital technologies, yet digital is not the only
    way.
    Tempus
    Energy, a
    UK-
    based
    energy service company
    that
    provides
    demand
    flexibility
    solutions
    (using
    the
    smart
    grid
    and
    smart
    appliances
    to
    balance
    electricity
    demand to lower the need for peak electricity
    capacity), won a European Court of
    Justice case, forcing the United Kingdom to revisit its
    capacity market
    regulation,
    which was
    interpreted
    as illegal
    subsidy (The UK government
    pays big fossil fuel suppliers for providing
    peak
    capacity
    that
    sits
    idle
    most
    of
    the
    year;
    Sara
    Bell,
    CEO
    Tempus,
    private
    communications.).
    More
    generally,
    over
    1,300
    legal
    actions
    over
    climate
    change
    have
    been
    taken
    against
    both
    governments
    and
    firms
    globally
    (Laville,
    2019). Besides legal
    and digital
    strategies,
    there
    remain
    other
    nonmarket strategies
    organizations
    could
    undertake
    to achieve
    the
    same
    ends
    (Baron,
    1995a,
    1995b;
    Capron & Chatain,
    2008).
    There
    is surely a need for more research
    on nonmarket
    strategies
    and
    to
    learn
    more
    about
    whether
    these
    nonmarket
    strategies
    are
    complements
    or
    substitutes
    to digital
    strategies.
    Conversations
    with
    Tempus’ CEO showed this
    legal
    strategy
    was a
    direct
    consequence
    of
    an
    anteceding
    nonlevel
    playing
    field
    for
    the
    digital
    solution
    the
    company
    wanted to bring to market. Process studies of how various nonmarket strategies are used by
    institutional
    and
    development
    entrepreneurs
    could
    provide
    rich
    insights
    into
    how
    organizational
    activities are sequenced to achieve preset
    goals.
    Trust and Digital Sustainability
    Some of the activities we discussed rely on blockchain technology and the embedding of verification into economic exchange transactions.
    As
    distributed ledger technology is known
    as
    trustware
    because
    it
    replaces
    interpersonal
    trust
    with
    technological
    verification,
    many
    have
    wondered
    what
    the
    implications
    will
    be
    for those
    businesses that
    are
    in
    the
    business of being
    a
    trusted
    Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 00(0)
    22
    intermediary (Hammi et al., 2018; Schramm, 2019). This new form of technological trust offers
    a lot of possible benefits. It can reduce the capacity of actors to behave opportunistically (reducing
    the
    need
    to
    be
    vulnerable),
    enhance
    input
    verifiability
    (facilitating
    control),
    ensure
    transparency
    and
    traceability
    during
    transaction
    time
    and
    transportation
    (improving
    monitoring),
    boost
    the speed of settlement
    (reducing nonpayment
    risk), and leverage actor embeddedness in an
    ecosystem (increasing reputational risk of
    nonconformity).
    Yet, trust is more than a mechanism to avoid opportunistic behavior of the other
    party.
    Research
    has found that
    trust plays an important
    role
    in team,
    organizational,
    and collaborative
    innovation
    (Barczak
    et
    al.,
    2010;
    Dovey,
    2009;
    Fawcett
    et
    al.,
    2012) and
    it
    is unlikely
    that
    “technological
    trust” can replace
    the same mechanisms.
    While
    in
    health care, for instance, the ability
    to
    share
    data
    anonymously
    and
    have
    confidence
    they
    cannot
    be
    tampered
    with
    offers
    great
    oppor-
    tunities for research and development (Mettler, 2016), there are undoubtedly application areas
    where blockchain- mediated economic exchange could hamper flexibility to respond and undermine
    innovative practices.
    Entrepreneurship scholars
    interested in trust should see this as a
    unique opportunity
    to theorize
    about various trust dimensions and the contingencies
    of trust
    across various types of entrepreneurial
    activity.
    Conclusion
    A variety of phenomenological lenses co- exist that each have an idiosyncratic perspective on
    how to tackle climate change, sustainable development, and the creation of socioecological
    value. To this, we add the digital sustainability lens that focuses on activities undertaken by
    entrepreneurial and incumbent firms that rely on digital innovations to create scalable socioecological value.
    We highlight six problems that hide beneath the surface of sustainability
    and are
    directly
    relevant
    to
    management and entrepreneurship
    theory and practice.
    To address those
    problems, we formulate
    digital sustainability
    pathways grounded in innovative
    and creative
    deployment of digital
    technologies.
    Most
    of
    the
    actors
    we
    provide
    as
    examples
    in
    this
    emerging
    field
    of
    digital
    sustainability
    have been young entrepreneurial ventures that create socioecological value around which
    they
    develop an economic proposition.
    We believe these
    organizations, and those that will
    follow
    their example, will play a pivotal role in how the global industrial complex will respond to
    climate change and other grand challenges.
    While many hurdles need to be jumped before we
    can
    even begin to dream of a sustainable
    economy, we remain hopeful that entrepreneurial
    ventures
    will
    find
    solutions
    that
    become
    so
    powerful
    they
    can
    overcome
    the
    lack
    of
    urgency
    manifest
    in
    most governments and
    large parts of civil
    society. Climate scientists say we have about 10
    years
    left
    to
    take
    drastic
    action
    if
    we
    want
    to
    avoid
    the
    worst
    effects
    of
    climate
    change.
    The
    time
    to
    act
    is
    now.
    As
    scholars, our role is first and foremost to observe, analyze, and bring insights back to
    industry. Digital transformation is undoubtedly one of the most influential trends affecting businesses
    now, and climate
    change the most existential
    threat.
    Some of the most exciting
    research
    ideas and entrepreneurial
    ventures are due to the
    convergence of the digital
    and sustainability
    imperatives.
    We hope others will be inspired to start studying these actors, their activities,
    and
    spur their students and colleagues into
    action.
    Declaration of Conflicting Interests
    The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
    publication of this article.
    George et al.
    23
    Funding
    The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or
    publication of this article: Gerard George and Simon Schillebeeckx gratefully acknowledge the support of
    SMU and the Singapore Ministry of Education through the grant 16- C207- SMU-023 “Sustainability and
    Natural Resources: Seeding an SMU Community and Research Agenda on Food and Water with an Asean
    Focus”. Gerard George is grateful for the financial support of The Lee Foundation (Singapore) for the Lee
    Kong Chian Chair Professorship.
    ORCID IDs
    Gerard George https:// orcid. org/ 0000- 0002- 6963- 5085
    Simon J. D. Schillebeeckx https:// orcid. org/ 0000- 0003- 0834- 1208
    Notes
    1. https:// medium. com/ planet- stories/ the- sensor- revolution- using- lidar- and- satellite- imagery- to- map-
    drought- 3ee4d8d57993
    2. https:// poseidon. eco/ clients. html; https:// www. btcwires. com/ round- the- block/
    ben- and- jerrys- partners- with- carbon- poseidon- blockchain- for- neutral- business/
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    Author Biographies
    Gerard George is Dean and Lee Kong Chian Chair Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
    at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University. His research
    focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship with an emphasis on organization design, governance, social inclusion and
    sustainability.
    Ryan K. Merrill is a Research Fellow for Sustainability, Strategy, and Innovation at the Lee
    Kong Chian School of Business, Singapore Management University (SMU). He holds a PhD
    from University of Southern California in Environmental and Energy Policy and Corporate
    Strategy. He published in leading energy and policy journals and is founder and Managing
    Director of The Global Mangrove Trust Ltd, a digital sustainability start- up that supports
    reforestation.
    Simon J. D. Schillebeeckx is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at the Lee Kong Chian School
    of Business, SMU. Prior to joining SMU, he obtained a PhD in Management from Imperial
    College London and worked in sustainable innovation. His research focuses on digitalization,
    innovation, sustainability, and natural resource management. He has published in management,
    entrepreneurship, and policy journals and is co- founder of the Global Mangrove Trust.