Kristian Roed Nielsen

Presentation

Could crowdfunding drive sustainable innovation?

Sustainable entrepreneurs and innovators spend up to 90 pct. of their time simply surviving and while there are multiple reasons for this, a lack of funding opportunites represents at least one major contributor to this state of uncertainty. Specifically since sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship is often relegated to a relatively narrow set of funding opportunities due to their comparative lack of marketability. There are simply other more lucrative short term investment opportunities for professional investors.

With the rise of crowdfunding a new and rapidly growing alternative source of finance is emerging for new entrepreneurs and incumbent firms alike which could alter this dynamic. It however remains unclear which (if any) motivational differences exist between traditional investors and crowd funders. While some literature suggests that crowd funders are significantly driven by intrinsic motivations such as the perceived legitimacy of the project, others suggest that extrinsic motivations like the economic bottom line of project remain at the heart of crowd funder investments. Hence crowdfunding at moment either represents a major boon for sustainability oriented ventures or simply another source finance that is favorable to the economic bottom line first and triple bottom line second. In order to explore this my PhD therefore propose to explore the motivational dynamics at play when crowd funders opt to support a specific project in order to uncover whether crowdfunding could represent a reliable source of finance for sustainable ventures.

Support from the European Union

My PhD project is part-financed by a larger EU FP7 project called EU-InnovatE, which has the overall goal of investigating the innovative and entrepreneurial roles that end users (consumers) take in shaping a green EU-economy. Exploring the often ignored role of the consumer within sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship, where consumers are more often relegated to position of passive adopter of sustainable innovation. Instead the project proposes that consumers are in fact significant sustainable innovators in their own right. The work by CBS is led by Prof. Lucia Reisch and me, where we seek to explore the policy implications of consumer driven innovation by uncovering for example the potential role of “crowd” in driving, financing and enabling sustainable ventures.

Support Social and Sustainable Crowdfunding

• http://www.myc4.com/
• http://www.kiva.org/
• https://www.ecocrowd.de/
• http://www.youcaring.com/

Primary research areas

• Sustainable consumption
• Sustainable innovation
• Crowdfunding
• Behavioural science and policy

Supervision

In my capacity as a PhD I can supervise either Bachelor or Masters students interested in my area of research. Write me an email or drop by my office and we can discuss your ideas.