Affiliation:
1. University of Málaga, Spain
Abstract
Entrepreneurship conditions the sustainable development of a society by the economic, social, and environmental impact of new ventures. Specifically, startups, due to their high level of innovation and scalability, have an important role in fostering and accelerating the implementation of sustainable practices. An empirical analysis is carried out through data collected in the framework of the GEM project to define the extent in which startups innovation impact SDGs. The results highlight that the most frequently addressed goals belong to the economic sphere (e.g., SDG 8 and SDG 9), while environmental and social aspects are scarcely considered. More than half of the SDGs are addressed by less than 10% of the startups. A change in policies to promote SDGs is needed to foster the implementation of CSR strategies from early entrepreneurial stages, increase startups awareness, and face the lack of attention that some SDGs are receiving from the currently emerging innovation.