Sustainability-Driven Entrepreneurship and India’s Economic Transformation: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Road Ahead

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🔬研究者:Useful for scholars studying green entrepreneurship, development economics, and sustainability transitions in emerging economies.

🏢実務担当者:Corporate sustainability teams can gain understanding of India's green startup ecosystem and potential supply chain opportunities or risks.

🏛政策担当者:Policymakers in developing countries can learn from India's challenges in scaling green enterprises, such as finance access and policy coordination.

Over the past ten years, India’s economy has grown steadily and with remarkable momentum, earning it recognition as one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world. This growth has created new opportunities, improved infrastructure, and raised aspirations across the country. At the same time, the speed of development has brought serious challenges. Expanding industries, growing cities, and rising energy needs have increased pressure on natural resources, worsened environmental pollution, and made communities more vulnerable to climate-related risks. As India moves toward its long-term climate goals—reaching 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070—sustainability can no longer remain a secondary concern. It must become central to the country’s development strategy. In this context, sustainability-driven entrepreneurship is emerging as a practical and forward-looking solution. By combining innovation with environmental responsibility and social inclusion, these enterprises seek to balance economic growth with ecological protection, guiding India toward a more resilient and sustainable future. This paper examines how sustainability-oriented enterprises are shaping India’s economic transformation. It analyses how green entrepreneurship is influencing production systems, generating employment, promoting technological advancement, and strengthening long-term competitiveness. It also considers the institutional, financial, and regulatory challenges that limit the scalability of such ventures in the Indian context. The study relies on a qualitative review of secondary sources, including national income data, policy documents, renewable energy statistics, startup ecosystem reports, and sectoral analyses. Data from NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation help assess sectoral trends and macroeconomic implications. Recent data show that India’s renewable energy capacity surpassed 180 GW in 2024, reflecting strong growth in solar and wind investments. The electric vehicle sector has expanded under targeted policies, while climate-tech and circular economy startups are attracting rising domestic and foreign investment. The findings show that sustainability-driven entrepreneurship is gradually reshaping India’s economic growth pattern. By promoting resource-efficient technologies, encouraging decentralized energy systems, and embedding environmental responsibility into market practices, these enterprises are influencing production and consumption structures. They are creating jobs, particularly in green sectors such as renewable energy, electric mobility, waste management, and climate technology. As global markets increasingly prioritize sustainability standards and ESG compliance, Indian green enterprises are also strengthening the country’s position in emerging global value chains. However, progress remains uneven. Limited access to affordable green finance, technological gaps, inconsistent state-level policy implementation, and skill shortages continue to slow the transition. The paper argues that making sustainability-driven entrepreneurship a core pillar of India’s economic transformation requires coordinated policy support. Strengthening credit access, building effective innovation ecosystems, and fostering closer research–industry collaboration are essential steps. It also stresses aligning entrepreneurial development with national priorities such as energy security, rural development, and inclusive industrialization. Positioned within the broader framework of structural change and development economics, green entrepreneurship emerges not merely as a trend, but as a strategic pathway toward resilient and environmentally sustainable growth in India.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i02.80846first seen 2026-06-10 05:17:27 · last seen 2026-06-16 05:05:41