Abstract
In the past, a gap has existed in the entrepreneurship literature regarding where future opportunities will come from. The finite nature of natural resources, combined with irresponsible human utilization, is affecting both economic and environmental prosperity more than ever before. Interestingly these issues have created big entrepreneurial prospects, for example as seen in the growing industry of alternative production of fuel and energy. Entrepreneurship is associated with problem solving, innovation and clever resource allocation, and when it comes to the natural resources environment the role of entrepreneurs could be that exactly; creating wealth and societal benefit through the sustainable recombination of resources. In this study, the attention is focused on natural resources as a source of entrepreneurial opportunities and how they work in the entrepreneurial process from discovery to sustainable exploitation. Eight entrepreneurs, whose ventures rely on natural resources, were interviewed with the purpose of distinguishing how that type of resource affects entrepreneurial action, focusing on sustainable opportunity creation and entrepreneurial discovery. The findings indicate that the choice to utilize natural resources was largely shaped by the individual environment context. It was apparent that the effect of locality and prior experience affected the opportunity discovery, where knowing the area and its possibilities proved important along with the needed know-how. The motivations derived from extrinsic and intrinsic factors like wealth creation, product streamlining, passion for pure route of produce and waste reduction, along with interest in sustainable organic production. Regulation proved both to be an incentive and hindrance, where well designed and stringent ones worked best, but faulty policies stood in the way of sustainable actions. Funds and grants did not play a big role in the exploitation of opportunities, and instead, the entrepreneurs relied on their own capital, developed the product slowly and utilized resources from previous productions.