Three pillars of sustainability and rural entrepreneurship- a study of Belagavi division

Abstract

The phrases ‘sustainable development’, ‘sustainability’, and SDGs are often used in recent times because of their urgency in preserving nature for the upcoming generation. Maintaining a sustainable world today is a significant challenge, primarily due to the increasing population and the excessive use of resources and plastic. With this problem in mind, on 25 September 2015, the United Nations and members of other countries popularized 17 SDGs applicable to the entire world. A timeframe of 15 years has been set to achieve these 17 goals, which are fit into three pillars, namely economic, environmental, and social sustainability. It is the responsibility of everyone to concentrate on this crucial issue, where Rural entrepreneurs in villages contribute towards achieving the Sustainable Development Agenda of 2030. The study was conducted with the intention of determining which pillar of the sustainability Rural Entrepreneurs are focusing more on and which type of activity focuses more on each pillar. This is an empirical study based on primary data of 400 respondents that has been collected by preparing an Interview Schedule with the help of KoboToolbox, which is meant for data collection in remote areas. The statistical tests, like the Friedman test, the Wilcoxon post hoc, and the Kruskal-Wallis H test, have been employed to test the hypotheses by using the SPSS 27 version software. The study found that Rural Entrepreneurs focus more on Environmental sustainability. Rural Entrepreneurs need to be given some special training on the sustainability pillars, so that they can give equal preference to all pillars. Focusing on all three pillars equally contributes to the achievement of SDGs.