Dornach, Switzerland— Entrepreneurship involves creating something new and dealing with new situations. Internally, this can refer to questions such as handing over a business to the next generation, externally to the development of tools for achieving carbon neutrality.

Giving space to new impulses means giving up what has been established and being open to the unknown. This can result in a feeling of powerlessness which is, in turn, necessary for letting go of former approaches whilst staying inwardly connected with the task – a situation that allows for inspiration.

After all, “Where crises occur and innovations are not reliable yet, a chaotic momentum often creates the transition to an ultimately reliable future solution.“ This is what Andrea Valdinoci, executive director of the World Goetheanum Association, has experienced.

Some of the entrepreneurs and companies who are partners in the Association have many years of experience with ecologically and socially oriented economic approaches. They are currently concerned with the question of how transitions can be shaped. This includes, for instance, the handing over of companies to the next generation, but also questions such as how one can achieve energy neutrality in one‘s own company as fast as possible.

Andrea Valdinoci notices that economics students have a growing interest in such questions. “Interdisciplinarity and the international perspective are close to their hearts,” he thinks and adds that “the tasks we are facing in companies and societies, require an extended and multifaceted understanding of different living situations so that sustainable solutions can be found.”

One tool for achieving this is an associative approach that enables individual decisions based on an understanding of complex interactions. With this approach and others that need developing, such as participation, social processes are kept open-ended so that they can be gateways for new impulses.