Green Business Development

Green business development

PROJECT 5

Helping native communities and rural mestizo populations identify and implement their own long-term, sustainable development needs, with an eye to safeguarding livelihoods, cultures, and biodiversity

Aims and Objectives

To help native communities and immigrant families identify their short-, medium- and long-term development needs and wants, using transparent participatory methods;

To evaluate the mix of location-specific opportunities, assistance from government service providers and non-government allies, and direct actions that together can most likely achieve their needs and wants, with an emphasis on sustainability, green business thinking, monitoring, environmental education, and an understanding of limits of acceptable change within their socio-cultural and environmental realities;

To promote transparent, gender-inclusive, community- and family-wide decision-making processes with respect to the previous aims, while respecting cultural norms and valuing all opinions made;

To accompany communities and families on the long road towards achieving their needs and wants, with an emphasis on helping them find the information they require and helping them solve problems when they arise, especially if they are finding these processes hard. This includes helping them identify sources of reliable information and establishing accounting mechanisms that focus on financial, social, and environmental factors;

To map the population size and distribution of natural resource assets, and to monitor change in these assets over time, as inputs into decision-making processes regarding economic activities;

To help communities and families understand Peruvian law, so that they can best take advantage of opportunities without generating problems for themselves in the future as their set of activities grow.

The traditional search for profits in the business sector has placed little or no value on the ecosystems or biodiversity from which many, arguably all, saleable products and services are derived. Furthermore, business decisions have without a doubt severely impacted native and other rural communities around the world for many years. If we are to stop and then reverse humanity’s impacts on nature and vulnerable societies, then fundamental changes to the way business opportunities are valued and subsequently implemented, and taxed, needs to change. Consumers appear to be slowly making the right choices and recognising the need to pay more sometimes for sustainable products and services. Businesses, in turn, are beginning to respond, slowly, though much more still needs to be done before we are on the right track towards economic wellbeing based on truly sustainable practices.

In biodiversity- and culturally-rich countries like Peru, the rapid transition towards a situation where sustainable or green businesses dominate the economy is all the more important in our race to conserve species and cultures - due to the rapid rate of degradation of ecosystems and native societies. Huge opportunities exist in Peru in the markets for leisure (e.g. ecotourism), carbon, energy, building materials, genetic engineering, pharmaceuticals, and so forth, which can be realised without environmental or cultural impacts, and which indeed could even promote conservation or regenerative practices.

With a focus on Madre de Dios, Cusco, and Puno, political regions located in the south-east of Peru and which are home to many indigenous peoples and the majority of Peru's biodiversity, we are identifying sustainable or green business types and finding ways to encourage and directly assist local entrepreneurs who are investing in these forms of businesses.

One form of green business that has been proven over again to be sustainable and which even promotes biodiversity conservation and contributes fairly to the wellbeing of local populations in these regions, including native communities, if managed properly, is ecotourism. Others include Brazil nuts, carbon, and biodiversity (via forest hectare sponsorship programs).

Aims and Objectives

To identify the business opportunities and business models that can be regarded as green or sustainable from the triple bottom line perspective - as measured by environmental, social, and financial metrics;

To respond positively to requests for assistance from entrepreneurs who are interested in investing in or further developing green business ideas. Such entrepreneurs could be native communities, mestizo families, or other investors who ultimately have control over biodiverse natural resources, and so forth;

To accompany green business entrepreneurs on their journey towards maturity, assisting them with information and training where required, and to overcome inevitable problems along the way;

To promote succesful green business development models at local and regional levels, as part of a process to encourage take-up and best practice in other business sectors;