The impact of climate entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions: a university-wide climate entrepreneurship programme
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Sep 04, 2025
About this article
Article Category: Research Article
Published Online: Sep 04, 2025
Received: Feb 15, 2024
Accepted: Jan 22, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ijm-2024-0013
Keywords
© 2024 Deirdre McQuillan et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Figure 1:
CEP interventions, participations, means, objectives, progression phase
| Intervention | Participants | Means | Objectives | pre/post program |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climate awareness photo competition | 38 photos from students and staff and 100+ attendants at exhibition. | Awards evening and exhibition. | Building climate change awareness. Promoting CSPC. | Foundation |
| Green week workshops | 87 students attended in 2022; 40 students attended in 2023 | Two-hour workshop during green week with follow up to complete CEP pitch (2022) | Learn to describe and communicate climate enterprise ideas. Explore synergies between complementary and similar business ideas to form founder teams. Communicate and negotiate own green enterprise start-up skills and those that might need to be acquired from others. | Foundation |
| CSPC rollout for students | 410 students trained on the CEP programme | 8 modules over semester leading to video recorded climate start-up ‘pitch’ | Learn the fundamentals of successfully starting a business. Build a basic start-up business case for a climate enterprise. Pitch the climate enterprise start-up business case in a professional and convincing manner to participants, trainers, and coaches. | CSPC |
| International showcase events for CSOC students (x 2) | 6 students involved in two international showcase events in Spain (online) and Latvia | 2 × 2-day events with 8 other international partners | Grow international mindset. Advance climate start-up pitching skills. Intercultural and transdisciplinary team learning and competency development. | Progression |
| International boot camps | 11 students travelled for 10-day boot camp in Romania. 4 students and one staff attended Netherlands | 10-day boot camp and 2 day bootcamp | Intercultural and transdisciplinary team learning and competency development. |
Progression |
| International prototyping event | 6 students over two international events (Latvia and Cyprus) | 2 × 2-day international events | Develop prototyping skills. Intercultural and transdisciplinary team learning and competency development. Meet and listen to the experiences of entrepreneurs and site visits. Learn about entrepreneurial failure. | Progression |
| Global ClimateLaunchpad Competition | 2 CSPC student pitches | Competitions held once per year in 2022 and 2023 | Developing and refining the green business idea. Coaching support and mentoring to perfect green business pitch, value proposition, and develop the business model. | Progression |
| National government supported start-up programme | 1 start-up from CEP | 3 phase programmes over 6 months | Equip start-ups with the right connections, the right skills, and the right route to capital to grow and sustain a successful business. | Progression |
| International mentoring | 1 start-up from CEP | 6 hours international mentoring each. | Start-up support to bring business to next level. | Progression |
Exemplar of CSPC board game pitch – House Hero
| CSPC module | Student pitch content |
|---|---|
| The Deal | - Encourage environmentally friendly and sustainable daily habits. |
| Target | - Families and young children < 15 years |
| Value proposition | - Changing daily habits |
| Product | - Board / cards / dice / instruction manual |
| Customer discovery | - Users enjoyed aesthetics |
| Financial | - E18.50 |
| Climate impact | - Educates user |
| Founders dream | - Create environmentally friendly game that becomes household name |
CEP pedagogical approaches and impact
| Intervention | Pedagogical approaches | Affective objectives impact | Skills based objectives impact | Start-up objectives impact | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Behavioural | Result | Behavioural | Result | Behavioural | Result | ||
| Climate awareness photo competition | Transformative learning: use of art (photo) method. Reflective statements on photos. Whole society approach: Keynote talk, exhibition with invited guests, meeting entrepreneurs.Progression model: introduction of CSPC and previous winning pitches to encourage progression. | Inspired conversations on climate awareness, photo representation and context. Requests to use / exhibit photos in other places. | Participants identified for Green Week workshops. 2 students intentions to join CSPC | Entering climate competitions. | 5 students won photo prize with financial reward. | None | None |
| Green week workshops (x2) | Active innovation methods: team formations, quantifying ideas. Transformative learning: use of art methods in multimedia storyboarding. Inclusion designs: universal design for learning principles to storyboarding, gender considerations in teams. Progression model: introduction of CSPC and encouragement to join. | Mapped out storyboard of individual climate enterprise dreams. Engaged in trading exercise to develop teams. Presented outcomes to peers and guests. | Each participant has a storyboard and a team formed to progress to CSPC. 8 students (2022) and 40 students (2023) progressed to CSPC. | Quantifying climate enterprise ideas. Communicating ideas verbally and through mixed media. | Students have foundational aspects of CSPC course (Module 1) | None. | None. |
| CSPC rollout for students (x8) | Active innovation methods: team formations, quantifying ideas, customer discovery, financial planning. |
Quantified main areas of interest in CE (board games, waste management, transport, building efficiency, energy, low carbon manufacturing) | Improved Attitudes: 3.94 (El survey). 50% of groups submitted pitches for the chance to progress to international showcase. Two groups progressed to global CLP competition. | Refining The Deal. Converting climate idea into alternative business model. Embedding climate impact into customer value proposition. Basic financial modelling. Designing and delivering customer discovery research. Identifying and calculating CO2 savings for customers. Pitching a climate start-up idea. | Improved Skills: 3.85 (El survey) | Entrepreneurial intentions. | Overall El score: 3.74. |
| International showcase events for CSOC students (x2) | Case study methods: presenting and listening to pitches from other countries. Active innovation methods: working in diverse teams. |
Inspiration and enjoyment of seeing the pitches of other students. Increased awareness of value of transdisciplinary challenge-based team work. Intercultural interest and context awareness. | Students agreed to be ambassadors for the CSPC and shared stories of international experience with peers. | Intercultural awareness. |
Enhanced knowledge of how to embed climate impact dimension into climate entrepreneurship start-up. | None. | None. |
| International boot camps (x2) | Active innovation methods: working in cross-country transdisciplinary teams, challenge-based learning on CEE. Whole society approaches: mentoring, co-creating with entrepreneurs, site visits. Context and inclusion approaches: international context, gender representation, intercultural and transdisciplinary team-based events. camping trip. Transformative learning: reflective journalling. | Intercultural interest and context awareness. Increased awareness of value of transdisciplinary challenge-based team work. Building international network. | Students agreed to be ambassadors for the CSPC and shared stories of international experience with peers. | Advanced knowledge and skills measuring climate impact for customers. Intercultural and transdisciplinary team competence building. Development of alternate business modelling for CEE, financial planning and customer discovery skills through new pitching competitions. | Awards for CEE pitching competitions. | Attitude and self-efficacy to start a climate enterprise. | One climate start-up created. |
| International prototyping events (x2) | Active innovation methods: working in cross-country transdisciplinary teams, experimental prototyping challenges. |
Intercultural interest and context awareness. Increased awareness of value of transdisciplinary challenge based team work. Building international network. | Students agreed to be ambassadors for the CSPC and shared stories of international experience with peers. | Basic prototyping skills for green product development based on simple experimental models. Intercultural and transdisciplinary team competence building. | Awards for prototyping competitions. | None. | None. |
| Global CLp Comp. | Active innovation methods: quantifying CE ideas, customer discovery, financial planning. Whole society approaches: customer discovery, real world validation, mentoring. Progression model: to national, regional, global finals. | Learning, coaching and mentoring from international experts and sponsors in CLP global ecosystem. | Inspiration from expert mentors and companies. Positive attitude towards green value proposition. | Refining The Deal. Converting climate idea into alternative business model. Embedding customer value proposition. Basic financial modelling. Designing and delivering customer discovery research. Identifying and calculating CO2 savings for customers. Pitching a climate start-up idea. | National, Regional, Global awards in CLP. | None. | None. |
| National government supported start-up programme | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | Training, mentoring, funding and coaching. | One start-up created. |
| International mentoring | Whole society approaches: expert mentoring. |
International mindset development | Attitude towards looking international for new markets. | Intensive coaching to support skills to move from start-up to acceleration to growth phase. | Knowledge of internationalisation process. Knowledge of accelerating climate start-up. | Progressing from incubation to acceleration. | Inspiration and knowledge to grow and seek international customers. |