engleski

Entrepreneurship vs Ecopreneurship - Integrated Approach to Housing

Globalization, recession and financial crisis revealed the growing need for the new, innovative, yet environmentally and socially responsible approach to entrepreneurship, as important driving force of sustainable development of specific territories by providing them with a wide variety of socioeconomic benefits, including diversification of energy supply and consumption. Although we are all, the humankind, aware of the fact that modern life would not be possible without energy, we would have no heat, no potable and drinkable water, no food, transportation, communications, housing and many other things, products and services that we are used to take for granted, we are still excessively exploiting the energy from exhaustible resources. Energy issues are the key topic of the 21st century in view of the facts of growing number of population worldwide on one side and decreasing energy supplies on the other. According to the UNECE buildings (residential and other) in Europe, North America and CIS are responsible for over a third of total final energy consumption. In Croatia even more, over 41%. The paper empirically analyses the possibilities and benefits of integrated approach to building houses, meaning using multiple renewable energy sources (RES) along with waste and water recycling in a creative ESI (Environmentally-friendly, Self-sufficient and Intelligent) house as an innovative and creative entrepreneurial (ecopreneurial) venture. Both desk and field research has been carried out. The authors offer research results of the recent achievements and state-of-the-art technologies using RES, as well as of actual practice of building houses in Croatia and some other Mediterranean countries. The research is limited by the lack of secondary data resources and by until now unpublished results of the work-in-progress studies.

Creative Entrepreneurship; Ecopreneurship; Green Business; Energy Efficiency; Renewable Energy Sources; Intelligent Housing

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