Behind The Success
Greenhouse
Accelerator
Unleashing the Power of Local Entrepreneurs to Create a Better Future
The Greenhouse Accelerator is a nonprofit organization with a group of experts who have time and interest to give back and help entrepreneurs to succeed. They provide education, advice, and financial support to early-stage cleantech entrepreneurs. As a mentor and accelerator, the Greenhouse Accelerator also emphasizes sustainable practices in existing businesses and educates students from elementary schools to MBA classes on sustainable development goals in order to provoke sustainable economic development and the creation of sustainable local jobs.
With a high-profile professional background in international business development and financial analysis, Bernie has been encouraging and supporting companies to adopt sustainable business practices - and help create sustainable local jobs. For the last ten years, Bernie has inspired and helped many young entrepreneurs succeed by advising early-stage cleantech or agricultural tech startups without costs to the participants.
Bernie Burgener
Executive Director
Greenhouse Accelerator
From founders' ideas and goals to create a sustainable economy to the expectations of stakeholders, there are many reasons why businesses should implement sustainable development goals, and one of the most important reasons is the expectation of investors and consumers. These stakeholders "want to see more sustainable practices, want to know how businesses look at sustainability, and what kinds of sustainable practices that businesses implement, as well as what their exposure to climate change is," Bernie said.
Reasons why business implements SDG:
Expectations from stakeholders, investors and customers
SDGs
in Business
How Bernie practices SDGs in business
With his long-time experiences in international corporations, Bernie has seen so many challenges and frustrations companies faced when it came to the execution of SDG. Thus, he decided to establish the Greenhouse Accelerator organization as a new way to promote SDG implementation.
Challenges When Implementing SDG
Work
Culture
Human
Resources
Cost
Business
There are no shortcuts or easy paths to achieve success. Bernie has helped young entrepreneurs in addressing many obstacles from human resources and finance to time pressures when implementing SDG into their business practices. For startups, it is not easy to attract third parties' investment as well as apply and maintain sustainability in the early-stage of business development. Along with limited financial resources and experience, entrepreneurs have a modest amount of time to be successful and proof to investors that their companies can be profitable.
Also, the low adoption rate of sustainable business practices is also a big concern to Greenhouse Accelerator. Nevertheless, in order to successfully apply sustainability in the business, it requires the founder and management team to have a new perspective, an open mindset on sustainability with new metrics of success, which are rarely addressed. In addition, to achieve sustainable development in business, attention must be paid to the manufacturing process.
Supporting, NOT Managing
The determination of the priority goals does not belong to the Greenhouse Accelerator; these priorities are decided by the entrepreneurs' point of view, their capacities, and the fields they participate in. Bernie and his team are giving advice and solutions when implementing SDGs and conducting business but not interfering with the management process inside the company.
Help young entrepreneurs
To help young entrepreneurs in early-stage, Greenhouse Accelerator’s mentors/ advisors called "accompangneurs" provide advice and work with startups over a period of three years to achieve sustainable economic development and to create local sustainable jobs.
Promote SDGs
implementation in mature corporations
The second way is to support existing but still small companies in embracing SDGs.
Bring SDGs closer to students through courses
The last and most vital way to build the fundamental knowledge of sustainable development is teaching students from elementary schools to high school and higher education.
With Greenhouse, all of these SDGs are equally important; not a single goal is less important than the other. However, with the global warming issue, at Greenhouse Accelerator, Bernie and his team favors actions on the green economy, as well as fostering innovation and promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, increasing local employment and ensuring decent work for all.