So, you want to start an environmentally sustainable business? Aside from figuring out what industry you want to enter and where your base funding will come from, the next important step is to decide the type of location you are looking to occupy. I will never forget the first time I went to speak with a financial advisor/ loan officer about starting a small business. He turned to me and said, “Jessica, I know its cliché but success in the business world is really all about location, location, location”. He proceeded to hand me a series of brochures about recently developed strip malls in my area.

Enthusiastically, he explained how many cars the parking lot could hold, the costing of renting an additional adjoining unit (for when my business becomes so successful that I need more space, obviously!) and the malls proximity to various major highways. To him, these were all major selling points for any potential business owner. To me, they were all reasons to look for another financial advisor.

For eco-entrepreneurs, it is important to question many of the ‘quick solutions’ offered by various industry professionals, The result of doing so may be larger fiscal investments, longer-term commitments and temporarily thin profit margins, but the pay-offs can be substantial.

Often times, when sticking to conventional notions of what makes a business successful, an entrepreneur finds themselves at the mercy of the trends. Just because a certain suburb is the hottest market around today, does not mean its subsequent strip-malls will be at all profitable in five years. Another downside of setting up shop in places between places (i.e.: the bi-product of sprawl) is that you can be subjected to fluctuating or over inflated rent. In reality, this can mean that you are financing a building or space you may never have ownership over while, at the same time, substantially decreasing your margin of profit.

A good way to think outside of conventional conception of business is to consider the tenets of New Urbanism when developing your business plan. New Urbanism is a great way to not only solidify your new business as sustainable, but to better ensure its longevity. New Urbanism is an urban planning and design movement that began in the mid-1980s. While many American cities were dealing with the aftermath of decades of large-scale sprawl, New Urbanism offered remedies for depleted populations, unused urban space and stagnate real estate markets. With the goal of taking old infrastructure and retrofitting it to incorporate more useable cities, New Urbanism can be seen as an attempt to recycle an entire city, making it a more enjoyable (and sustainable!) place in the process.

New Urbanism has a lot to offer eco-entrepreneurs. First of all, it can act as a checklist of things to look for in a new location. Is the city walkable? Is there adequate public transportation available? What is the housing situation? Is there enough ‘mixed use spaces’ in the area you are looking to invest in? The end goal of New Urbanism is to create cities with a true sense of place, cities that have all the amenities within walking distance, and places where people are relatively connected.

Another way in which New Urbanism can be seen as a tool to any eco-entrepreneur is in its focus upon the revitalization of areas and neighborhoods that have lost popularity, or density. By encouraging people to re-inhabit places that were previously vacant, or run-down, New Urbanism is working to not only recycle existing buildings and infrastructure, but to increase the long-term profit of small-businesses.

For small business the financial advantages of New Urbanism is two fold: On the most basic level, New Urbanism can act as a catalyst for urban growth. By investing early in such a place a small businesses can reap the benefits of increased property value over time. This phenomenon is referred to as Sustainable Prosperity.

As explained Richard Florida’s book, The Rise of the Creative Class, when people re-inhabit a place that was once considered ramshackle and put forth the effort to make it a desirable place to live, more people will follow suit and thus repopulate the area. As more people move to this newly improved city, corporations will soon follow, as there exists an ample employment base. The financial contributions of these corporations to both the community and the tax base serve to further economic growth. Basically, it is a strategy for economic recovery that focuses on issues pertaining to quality of life.

In ‘big picture’ terms, New Urbanism promotes ownership. While the ownership New Urbanism encourages usually involves purchasing a neglected property and bringing it up to code, the investments this process entails are well worth their price. Ownership is key for small business success, as it frees eco-entrepreneurs from the control of a landlord and all limitations that go along with being a renter.

Although it may seem daunting to take on a large project like renovating a building, the end result is a space that has been retrofitted to fit your exact needs. Further, as an eco-entrepreneur, you have a responsibility to look for more sustainable alternatives to conventional business practices, By rehabbing a building that may been destroyed otherwise, you are making a commitment to sustainability, especially if you employ eco-friendly building practices in the process!

Being an eco-entrepreneur comes with both adversity and rewards. If you keep long-term success in sight, and disregard much of what you thought you knew about short term profit, the struggles will seem more manageable and the rewards more obvious. New Urbanism provides the eco-entrepreneurs of the world with a vision of what their struggles can help actualize.