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Sustainability Entrepreneurship is the creation of new ventures based on understanding the ways social, financial, and ecological systems intersect. Developing the ability to analyze these systems in depth strengthens entrepreneurial skills in environments ranging from non-profits attempting to create social change to companies trying to implement more sustainable business practices. Sustainability Entrepreneurship combines existing research on environmental systems in the social and biological sciences, an understanding of social and technical expertise, and the experience of non-profit and for-profit projects to improve the practice of sustainable design and development. 

As part of its program in Sustainability Studies, the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has developed course materials and case studies to build entrepreneurial skills for social change. The course materials presented here provide strategies for understanding complex situations. These can be used as conceptual exercises to develop entrepreneurial skills on an individual basis and in a classroom setting. This project is co-sponsored by the STS Department and the Office of Entrepreneurship at Rensselaer.