Learning papers

Shaping A More Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable Future: Supporting young social and green entrepreneurs

When people start businesses, they create income, jobs, and economic growth. Young people are the entrepreneurs of the future and working to solve some of the greatest social and environmental challenges of our time. They are reimagining business, bringing new ideas to market, strengthening communities and economies, and building opportunity – not just for themselves, but for us all.

Throughout our global network, we are seeing more and more young entrepreneurs build businesses that deliver profit with purpose. They will play a vital role in creating a more equitable and sustainable world for us all.

It is our ambition to provide these young green and social entrepreneurs with the support they need to grow and sustain their businesses and we are on a journey with our global network to develop the most effective approaches, methodologies, and tools to achieve this goal

We believe social and green entrepreneurship can unlock the potential of young people as agents and leaders of change, creating vital economic and employment opportunities in the process. In this paper, we explore what social and green entrepreneurship means for YBI. We bring together insights from a variety of sources and outline what good support looks like for aspiring young social and green entrepreneurs.

Using our successful integrated approach — incorporating personal development, business development and facilitating the enabling environment — to anchor our thoughts on the additional needs of young social and green entrepreneurs, we aim to inform learning about how youth-led micro and small businesses can achieve social and green impact.

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Download an accessible version of the paper here.