Abstract

Scholars increasingly argue that Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) and their entrepreneurs should play a central role in reducing the rate and magnitude of climate change. However, evidence suggests that whilst some entrepreneurs do recognize their crucial role in addressing climate change, most find taking action difficult. How some entrepreneurs nevertheless concern themselves with climate change has been the subject of a few recent studies. Some have tentatively argued that these entrepreneurs can do so because of bottom-up, community-led approaches and peer-to-peer relationships. However, little is known about these efforts. Such network interactions of entrepreneurs have not been empirically researched in the light of climate change and little is known about the reason for, and impact of, such informal relationships and efforts for entrepreneurs’ mitigation of climate change. Over a period of four years we examined how entrepreneurs use networks to mitigate climate change through a variety of qualitative research methods. We reveal that the entrepreneurs use Citizen Interactions through which they try to understand climate change, exploring their personal experiences and observations, and second, such relationships create a Shared Belief System that serves to sidestep the current external governance structures that do not support entrepreneurs’ endeavours to mitigate climate change. We suggest that change-related policies need to use community efforts to support and ease engagement with climate change efforts.