Eco-entrepreneurship project website: Brokering and manageing sustainable real estate investments in Mexico

Proposers: Ashley Dean and Kristian Beadle

Kristian and I will begin building our eco-entrepreneurship project website. Unlike typical Bren group projects, our project involves developing a business plan. The general idea of the project is to broker financial relationships between socially responsible investors and green developers/projects (eg. eco-resorts) in Mexico. We hope to facilitate and capitalize on the provision of funding necessary to support sustainable development while providing positive returns on investments.

Our website will be designed with the needs of our company and potential clients (green real estate investors and developers) in mind. To that end, it will be primarily commercially driven, but with a strong emphasis on education and socially responsible business. Over the quarter we hope to build a template upon which we can build as we gather information about our project. We will be begin by articulating our mission, who we are, and what services we provide. We will include educational components that address what exactly socially responsible investing and 'green' real estate is all about, the investment potential for eco-resorts in Mexico, and why sustainable development matters. We hope to incorporate creative, interactive tools to engage and help educate our clients and the general public who may visit our site about sustainable development. These could include podcasts from people working in this field, links to successful eco-resorts, and virtual tours of potential investment areas/projects.

We also hope to incorporate a 'client only' part of our site that serves financial needs, but also helps to create a community amongst our investors. This could include a blog where clients can share potential investment opportunities discovered during traveling and any travel/security issues that may arise. We could also set up a photo album so our clients can post photos or videos they took of these different areas. Down the line we hope to incorporate a sophisticated financial web-based system that allows 'micro-investors' to use our site in a manner similar to micro-loans to help support more sustainable development.