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| Characteristics of Public Entrepreneurship Networks | ||
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The Public Entrepreneurship Network (PEN) model captures the dynamics of change and the implications for action by government agencies and other actors interested in sustainable development. Five key features distinguish public entrepreneurship networks:
Public entrepreneurship networks combine local initiative that has a distinctively entrepreneurial character with a strong orientation to sustainability and other public goals. This combination arises in part from the variety of organizations that participate in these networks. Public entrepreneurships networks are characterized by both the pattern of development and the key facilitative roles that have to be played for development to thrive. They include:
Given what is at stake, it is neither
practical nor desirable to rely on private and non-governmental
actors to consistently fill these roles. Yet government
action must not threaten the ecology of relationships
that generates the attention and energy that make
these networks effective. This sets a challenge
for government agencies. Their participation is
essential. Yet efforts to "legislate"
change may disrupt the very patterns of development
they seek to promote. Identifying public entrepreneurship
networks and understanding how they work is only
the first step.
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| SunLine Transit | ||
| The Development of an Alternative Fuel Program
The SunLine story begins
with an aging fleet of diesel buses that had one of the worst service
records in the U.S. SunLine’s Board authorized management to
acquire a new fleet of buses and added, “While you’re
at it, make them alternative fuel.” View a poster detailing the Sunline Public Entrepreneurship Networks: (PDF | JPEG) |
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| Government Action Puts Private-Sector Resources To The Public Good
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| Building Commercial Carsharing in America
This was a tall task for a concept that was relatively unknown, and almost completely unimplemented in the United States. To adapt the carsharing concept to the American marketplace, Zipcar faced the uphill battle of making fundamental improvements to existing carsharing models while simultaneously creating a market for a product that had never before been available. In this endeavor, Zipcar has developed unique on-line wireless vehicle reservation and tracking systems that make the carsharing transaction almost effortless. At the same time, they have marketed the concept using techniques similar to community outreach programs to reach individual consumers, institutions, and government agencies, from which Zipcar needs regulatory and material support. Throughout Zipcar's history, their choices have been guided by the original decision to make Zipcar as large as possible. Obtaining funding and securing government support and regulatory accommodation have been key obstacles that Zipcar has overcome and is overcoming. Zipcar has repeatedly encountered public officials who are caught in the dilemma of "how to support the concept and not individual companies" At the same time, they have attracted floods of input and ideas for how to improve and expand their service from customers, investors, officials, and almost every other type of interested party imaginable. Zipcar has learned from its experience that, "The best innovation comes when someone comes to us and says, 'Wouldn't it be great if you did this!'" |
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| A Private Company Expands Alternative Fuel Use in a Public Agency Efforts to encourage the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) as a transportation fuel in Switzerland, were spearheaded by the Compagnie Industrielle et Commerciale du Gaz (CICG), who promoted the introduction of CNG vehicles in two different projects. The first initiative involved the development of a generic CNG injector aimed at adapting private cars for CNG use, and the second involved the promotion of CNG as a fuel for public transportation buses and captive fleets. The CICG's first project led to a joint research and development effort with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, which produced a new patented injector system now being distributed by Landi Renzo. The second project led to the adoption of 15 CNG buses by Transport Lausannois (TL), the company responsible for public transportation in the city of Lausanne, Switzerland. In addition to these efforts, the CICG has been active in the development of CNG compression stations. CICG played the critical role of pioneer in all these projects, at times sharing the role with local politicians in the city of Laussanne. These actors worked hard to overcome initial reluctance of TL, which was due to the extra cost involved in adopting CNG vehicles and perceptions of poor vehicle performance. Drivers and the fleet maintenance staff have now embraced the new technology and consider it both clean and comfortable. The implementation of CNG buses required training programs and new working procedures that were a unifying influence for the company. Bus riders also embraced the new buses because they were cleaner and carried a better image than the old diesel vehicles. The TL management is hoping that this new image will further promote the use of public transportation within the city. Although CICG was able to achieve local success in Lausanne, they were not successful in influencing policy makers on the national scale, due to communication barriers and lack of sufficient drive at the national level, legislation that would have specifically addressed natural gas as a fuel for transportation ultimately did not pass. However, the natural gas injector developed in Switzerland will be distributed in Italy first due to a more favorable legislation. |
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| Building Capacity for Deployment of Sustainable Technology Greenpeace set the ambitious goal of 20,000 solar panels on Dutch roofs within two years and commenced building a program to have the panels manufactured and make them commercially available to consumers. Much of this is well outside the scope of Greenpeace's competency; however, strategic alliances with consulting firms Ecofys and Stork, the Dutch bank Rabobank, the financial services company De Lage Landen, and the Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment. These relationships were used to help overcome financial, technical, and bureaucratic challenges that threatened to derail the project. Greenpeace was not able to reach their original goal of 20,000 solar panels. However, the benefits of this project persist beyond its end may turn out to be more significant than the panels themselves. Greenpeace showed that action can push technologies forward. Action to introduce the technology brought together a network of actors, connected ideas, resources, and expertise, and contributed to the development of "social capital." The working relationships that were formed between previously unrelated actors remain. Additionally, many lessons were learned about how solar panels can be successfully marketed and sold that will aid future endeavors, including the SOL*id project, being conducted by Ecostream to bring solar hot water systems into broader use. |
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| Private Individuals Changing an Industry
However, their success was just an idea, and the road from that to worldwide refrigerator sales can be very long. In the path stood a refrigeration manufacturing industry with heavy investments in HFC technology and ties to the West German chemical industry. Greenpeace stepped in to help them along this road, connecting the doctors with an East German refrigerator manufacturer that was in dire financial straits and especially receptive to new ideas. Greenpeace then supplied public venture capital to fund the development of prototype refrigerators. Safety concerns were surmounted with the help of the German safety and standards institution Technischer Ueberwachungsverein, which certified the technology as "safe and tested". Due to these efforts, Greenfreeze technology has come into mainstream use with 40 million units sold worldwide in over 100 models by 2000. This case demonstrates that non-governmental actors can have a vision or understanding that enables them to better serve as a steward of the common good than the government. Neither governmental, nor large industry actors were supportive of the expansion of this technology until later stages. The doctors pioneering vision was the crucial catalyst for the Greenfreeze project, and non-governmental actors may need to offer such vision in similar cases in the future. |
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Based
in Zurich, Mobility CarSharing provides its members with access
to automobiles for local trips within most regions throughout Switzerland.
Mobility CarSharing developed during the 1990s through the interaction
of environmental entrepreneurs and public officials concerned with
reducing energy usage throughout Switzerland. Government support
for car sharing organizations developed in response to a 1990 public
referendum that banned the planning of any additional nuclear power
facilities until 2000 and the anticipated potential energy shortages,
In response to this, the Swiss government initiated the Energy 2000
program, which provided limited resources to policies that would
lead to voluntary reductions in energy use. 
The
Zipcar case is an example of a private-sector company attempting
to develop new technology in order to implement an existing green
technology concept. Zipcar is using sound business practice as a
guide towards a success that they hope will be not only profitable,
but beneficial to society as well. In 1999, Antje Danielson (an
environmental science scholar at Harvard) introduced Robin Chase
(an MIT Business School graduate) to the concept of carsharing.
Chase had been eager to start her own business and was lamenting
the need to buy a second car while living in the dense city of Cambridge,
Massachusetts and immediately recognized this as exactly what she
needed on both counts. The company was founded a few months later
with the ambitious goal of "transforming urban transportation"
by making carsharing a mainstream service in America. Their rationale
was that the more cars they take off the road, the more good they
will do. Feeling that only an economically viable service could
achieve this, Zipcar established itself as a for-profit company
with no public sector-investment. 
In
1997, Greenpeace set out to prove a point. They felt that photovoltaic
technology offered a much more immediate potential than was being
realized. The way to break through the stalemate was to take direct
action that would put solar panels on the roofs of homes and offices.
By generating this "action vector" they would also contribute
to making panels cheaper, more accessible, and more prominent in
the minds of consumers.
The
development of Greenfreeze refrigerators would not have occurred
without the pioneering initiative of two doctors working in the
Dortmund Institute of Hygiene in Germany. Motivated by a failure
to find an environmentally-friendly cold storage unit free of HFCs
and HCFCs for their institute, the two doctors began researching
hydrocarbon refrigeration. The potential of hydrocarbon refrigeration
had been ignored by manufacturers because successful results of
such research could not be patented, and would therefore not be
as profitable. The doctors succeeded in producing a viable hydrocarbon
refrigeration model in the early 1990s.