Introduction:
Various ecological crises pose a threat to humanity, highlighting an urgent need for action. Key levers in taking action are (sustainable) companies, accounting for a considerable share of global greenhouse gas emissions (Unsworth et al., 2021). Given the progression of environmental crises, companies should adopt high-impact environmental measures to achieve a maximum environmental benefit. While the importance of high-impact measures is widely recognized, it remains unclear which specific measures have a high-impact and why such measures are not always implemented during the founding phase.


Purpose:
Entrepreneurs are a particularly interesting group to study because they have maximum freedom in decision-making during the founding phase of new companies. In this study, we investigate which high- and low-impact environmental measures entrepreneurs identify for their companies and which facilitating conditions and barriers may promote the implementation or prevent them from implementing these measures.


Method:
We conducted a two-staged qualitative Prolific survey targeting U.S. entrepreneurs (N = 102) and analyzed the data using the Gioia (2012) method. The median response time of the second survey stage was 52 minutes.


Results:
We developed a taxonomy of high- and low-impact environmental measures, including their facilitating conditions and barriers. The two most prominent high-impact measures are waste minimization strategies and transition to renewable energy. The implementation of environmental measures was, e.g., facilitated by economic advantages, sustainable boundary conditions, and an organization's pro-environmental climate. Conversely, the absence of these conditions hindered implementation. Moreover, what is a high-impact environmental measure varies across industries. However, high- and low-impact measures were implemented equally often.


Conclusions:
Consequently, entrepreneurs may not prioritize high-impact measures over low-impact measures when pondering which to implement. Our taxonomy enables scientists, entrepreneurs, and managers to identify high-impact environmental measures in organizations and to support their effective implementation by considering the facilitating conditions and identified barriers.