IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v33y2025i2p2672-2695.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of environmental sustainability on willingness to invest in startups: A survey among private investors

Author

Listed:
  • Lasse Voß
  • Henning Cordes
  • Rainer Lueg

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of environmental sustainability on willingness to invest (WTI) in startups vs. established companies. Using data from a survey among private investors, we compare measures of WTI and the perceived return–risk ratio (RRR) for both environmentally sustainable and non‐environmentally sustainable startups and established companies. The results indicate that environmental sustainability significantly and positively influences WTI for both startups and established companies, with a notably stronger effect for startups. Non‐environmental sustainability significantly decreases WTI. Environmental sustainability has a significantly positive impact on the perceived RRR for both startups and established companies, although startups are rewarded more than established companies for environmentally sustainable practices. This highlights that entrepreneurs have a financial incentive to prioritize environmental impact, and the demand for environmental sustainability can provide startups with an advantage in capital raising. This research contributes to the limited literature regarding sustainable entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability's specific impact on WTI.

Suggested Citation

  • Lasse Voß & Henning Cordes & Rainer Lueg, 2025. "The impact of environmental sustainability on willingness to invest in startups: A survey among private investors," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), pages 2672-2695, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:2:p:2672-2695
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.3254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.3254
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.3254?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:33:y:2025:i:2:p:2672-2695. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.