Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Listen as professor William P. Barnett and Stanford student Samuel Minev Benzecry host a discussion with Keegan Cooke, director of the Stanford Ecopreneurship Programs, to discuss the takeaways from an academic conference held at Stanford GSB on May 14, 2025.
This conference seeked to bring together leading academic scholars, sustainability-focused entrepreneurs [aka ecopreneurs] and business leaders to share challenges and best practices in scaling sustainability innovation.
Stanford Ecopreneurship Programs, a partnership between Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Doerr School of Sustainability, hosted a conference on the subject of Scaling Sustainability Innovation.
This conference sought to bring together leading academic scholars, sustainability-focused entrepreneurs [aka ecopreneurs] and business leaders to share challenges and best practices in scaling sustainability innovation. This knowledge-sharing aimed to generate new holistic understanding about effective strategies and practice when scaling sustainability innovation in a variety of contexts, to accelerate a multi-trillion dollar transition to address current global climate and sustainability challenges and create a future where humans and nature thrived in concert and in perpetuity.
Key themes of discussion included:
- Various pathways to scale sustainability innovation, spanning startups, established for-profit corporations, nonprofits, governments, universities, etc.
- The role that people/leadership development had in scaling sustainability-focused innovations/organizations
- The role that various forms of capital played at different stages of scaling sustainability innovation
- The role that various forms of partnerships played at different stages of scaling sustainability
- How entrepreneurs and business owners navigated their relationship with government at different stages of scaling
The conference also included an Innovation Expo, aimed at showcasing sustainability innovation coming out of Stanford’s ecosystem and fostering fruitful connections between ecopreneurs, investors, and partners.
The Stanford Initiative on Business and Environmental Sustainability Research Conference Series is hosted by Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
Season 2, episode 39, recorded on May 14, 2025
#GSBsustainability #GSBpodcast #Doerrpodcast #podcast
Listen as professor William P. Barnett and Stanford student Samuel Minev Benzecry host a discussion with Keegan Cooke, director of the Stanford Ecopreneurship Programs, to discuss the takeaways from an academic conference held at Stanford GSB on May 14, 2025.
This conference seeked to bring together leading academic scholars, sustainability-focused entrepreneurs [aka ecopreneurs] and business leaders to share challenges and best practices in scaling sustainability innovation.
Stanford Ecopreneurship Programs, a partnership between Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and Doerr School of Sustainability, hosted a conference on the subject of Scaling Sustainability Innovation.
This conference sought to bring together leading academic scholars, sustainability-focused entrepreneurs [aka ecopreneurs] and business leaders to share challenges and best practices in scaling sustainability innovation. This knowledge-sharing aimed to generate new holistic understanding about effective strategies and practice when scaling sustainability innovation in a variety of contexts, to accelerate a multi-trillion dollar transition to address current global climate and sustainability challenges and create a future where humans and nature thrived in concert and in perpetuity.
Key themes of discussion included:
- Various pathways to scale sustainability innovation, spanning startups, established for-profit corporations, nonprofits, governments, universities, etc.
- The role that people/leadership development had in scaling sustainability-focused innovations/organizations
- The role that various forms of capital played at different stages of scaling sustainability innovation
- The role that various forms of partnerships played at different stages of scaling sustainability
- How entrepreneurs and business owners navigated their relationship with government at different stages of scaling
The conference also included an Innovation Expo, aimed at showcasing sustainability innovation coming out of Stanford’s ecosystem and fostering fruitful connections between ecopreneurs, investors, and partners.
The Stanford Initiative on Business and Environmental Sustainability Research Conference Series is hosted by Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
Season 2, episode 39, recorded on May 14, 2025
#GSBsustainability #GSBpodcast #Doerrpodcast #podcast
