AbstractThe increased number of environmental problems caused by business activities put higher pressures on entrepreneurs to implement pro‐environmental policies within their businesses. However, studies show that SMEs are less engaged with sustainable and pro‐environmental policies. Hence, it is important to understand the barriers and drivers of implementing a pro‐environmental strategy in SMEs from an entrepreneur's perspective. In a study with Indonesian SME owners, we find that environmental sustainability orientation (ESO) is driven by an entrepreneur's explicit and implicit power motives. Using polynomial regression with surface analysis, we also reveal that a high level of SME's ESO is affected by power motive discrepancy. We discuss implementations for policymakers, entrepreneurs, and educational programs in entrepreneurship.