En·vi·ro·pre·neur: difficult to pronounce but easy to conceptualize. This opening line is how our inaugural enviropreneur™ issue—and my first issue of PERC Reports—began, so I find it appropriate to end with the same phrase for my final issue as editor.
The enviropreneur stories are fun and challenging to work on—always a creative clash of property rights, markets, and contracts being applied in innovative ways to environmental challenges. Some projects succeed, such as Rhino Ark (PERC Reports 2011), while others fail, such as the Remediators (PERC Reports 2006). But we have learned from each and every one of these risk-takers; a few readers have even found inspiration to launch their own ventures.
Speaking of new ventures, JAMES WORKMAN, who is in the middle of creating his next business, found time to showcase eight fellow PERC Enviropreneur Institute alumni from the fisheries sector—ranging from the class of 2003 to 2013 and spanning seven organizations. These individuals are working tirelessly to change the course of global fisheries management.
New to the PERC team, Annie Ireland skillfully weaves together a story about a farmer/artist/scientist-turned-enviropreneur. SARAH BELLOS, class of 2013, is altering the textile dye industry one pair of jeans at a time.
LOGAN YONAVJAK, class of 2012, is helping connect people who want to “do well by doing good” to financial capital. In this issue she focuses on her classmate DANIEL CLAUSSEN who is “creating opportunities for investors to find breakthrough technologies in the markets that will define our future.”
Last but not least, PERC outreach associate Charlotte Huus-Henriksen courageously dives into the mind of engineer, NASA scientist, and competitive skier DAVID HOFFMAN. In “A Fresh Idea for Dirty Air,” she reveals his innovative approach to evading emissions in our most polluted cities.
Thank you to the 200-plus enviropreneurs who have come to PERC and who have inspired so many want-to-be environmental entrepreneurs over the past 14 years of the program. I, for one, am planning to take what I have learned from you and the rest of the PERC team and apply these ideas on the ground in my new career.
For more information about PERC’s Enviropreneur Institute, click here.
