Business Incubators and their Engagement in Sustainable Development Activities: Empirical Evidence from Europe

Abstract

We investigate the engagement of business incubators in activities aimed at sustainable development. Although the importance of business incubators and the importance of sustainable development are both clearly acknowledged nowadays, separately, there is hardly any attention for the engagement of business incubators in sustainable development activities in the academic literature. We conduct primary data collection among a sample of business incubators in Europe, offering respondents a range of questions about their engagement in sustainable development activities. We find that a significant proportion of business incubators in Europe clearly engage in activities aimed at sustainable development, with their own activities, program offering, selection of mentors, and selection of incubatees. Our empirical analysis also suggests the existence of a separate subgroup of sustainable business incubators, that differ significantly from other business incubators on a range of environmental and social aspects.