Faculty Advisors: Gary Lbecap & John Melack

Eco-Entrepreneurship Focus: Stimulating Environmental Innovation and Technology Transfer

While the environmental challenges facing the world today seem daunting, they present tremendous opportunities for eco-entrepreneurs who have the training to advance an innovation along the trajectory of science to solutions. Never before has the market been so ready to accept innovative technical and business solutions, and never before has a graduate program existed that was designed to give innovators the tools to succeed.

In collaboration with the highly regarded Technology Management Program (TMP) at the UCSB College of Engineering, the Bren School has launched the nation's first program of study in Eco-Entrepreneurship (Eco-E) to promote the innovation of environmental products, services, and technology transfer. This program teaches graduate students how to move an environmental solution from concept to market for their personal and financial benefit as well as for the betterment of the environment. Students may add the Eco-E focus to any of the six Bren MESM specializations.

Addressing serious environmental and natural resource problems requires ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Through their Eco-E collaboration, the Bren School and TMP are expanding and promoting environmental entrepreneurship and technology transfer in an altogether new way. Eco-E links innovation with the environment by providing entrepreneurial training and support for the launch of socially valuable new ventures.

Students who select this option take courses at the Bren School and in TMP in a curriculum that leads to the development of a business plan to launch innovative technologies, products, or practices that address important environmental or natural-resource problems and enhance the value of the organization or other business entity, or may lead to the creation of new entities. The business plan includes a mission statement, value proposition (the opportunity), a target market, an industry study, competitive analysis, financials, and an exit strategy. The business plan provides tangible evidence of students' skills that are useful for companies, government agencies, and NGOs at a time when organizations across the country are looking to develop technologies and products that promote sustainability, address climate change, and improve overall environmental quality and natural resource allocation and conservation.

Because much of the Eco-E coursework overlaps with Graduate Program in Management Practice (GPMP), students pursuing the Eco-E focus can earn a UC-recognized certificate in GPMP. TMP courses include technology feasibility, new-venture marketing, new-venture finance, and business-plan development. They are augmented by Bren courses in competitive strategy, corporate environmental management, and industrial ecology. Students develop the business plan as part of their Group Projects and culminate their study by participating in the Business Plans Competition at UCSB and similar competitions at other institutions.

Through the Eco-E collaboration, the Bren School and TMP are expanding and promoting environmental entrepreneurship and technology transfer as a valuable and effective way of addressing critical environmental and resource problems.

Bren students pursuing the Eco-Entrepreneurship track take the following courses:

ENGR 285B: New Venture Creation is about the process of creating a viable new business— the principles may be mostly applicable to a business person thinking of adding a new product or new product line within an existing company, but the focus is on doing it as an independent entrepreneur.

285D: New Product Development is about the process of creating a new product within an existing company. This class stresses project management, and building management systems and processes that are replicable not just a one shot, start-up.  Within an ongoing organization one has to work with the corporations’ values, processes and strategies while the entrepreneur is trying to create for the first time a set of values, processes and strategies.  For most students “B” is probably most appropriate, but they may want to consider taking both if their schedules permit.

Students that want to pursue Eco-E or students that are considering Eco-E as a possibility must take ENGR 285B or ENGR 285D during fall quarter* of their first year in the program. These classes help students develop the capacity to generate and flesh out ideas for Eco-EE projects that might be appropriate for their group project/business plan. Taking one of these classes in the first quarter does not commit students to pursing Eco-E, but rather, keeps open for them the possibility of pursuing it. Whether or not they decide to pursue Eco-E the, the course provides knowledge and skills that will still be of value.

*Note: In fall 2009, only ENGR 285B is offered so students must enroll in that course.

See a recommended schedule for Eco-E students.

Much of the Eco-E curriculum parallels the requirements for the Graduate Program in Management Practice (GPMP) certificate offered by the Technology Management Program, and Eco-E students who take the following two additional classes can earn this certificate as well.

Eco-Entrepreneurship students who want to earn a GPMP certificate must also complete:

Advisory Council

We are indebted to the members of the Eco-Entrepreneurship Advisory Council, who guide, promote and support eco-entrepreneurial education at the Bren School.

Donors

Eco-Entrepreneurship at the Bren School is grateful for major support provided by the following visionary donors:

The Wilczak Family Foundation

Donald J. Fleisher

The H. N. and Frances C. Berger Foundation

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation