Local Environmental Preferences and Green Startups

Many companies globally are undertaking initiatives to reduce their ecological footprint, often in response to pressure from regulators, investors, creditors, and customers. In this chapter, we present the results of a study on the role that general environmental preferences and awareness play in driving corporate climate responses. Specifically, we explore whether local environmental preferences of the population are significant determinants of the localization of green startups. The preferences of the local community may affect green entrepreneurship, to the extent that stakeholders such as local governors, employees, investors, and customers are members of said community. We conduct our study on Italian startups, making use of survey data from the Italian National Institute of Statistics to measure local climate awareness at the regional level (ISTAT, 2024), and the Italian registry of innovative startups (MISE, 2024).