In the context of the spread of the European Green Deal and activation of green economy on the European continent, the issue of the development of green territories and appropriate tools for regulating these processes arises. At the same time, a special place is given to innovative entrepreneurship as a driver of green development of territories. The article is devoted to the substantiation of the areas of implementation of environmental innovations - eco-startups in the development of territories in the context of the spread of the principles of green economy. To achieve this goal, the article uses dialectical method of cognition, systemic and complex approaches, methods of observation and logical generalization, system-structural analysis, cognitive modeling. The authors propose the definition of "green territory", develop its concept and systematize the main components. Arguments are given on the impact of eco-startups on the activation of green development of the territory, the models of innovative activity as basic ones for ecological startups are revealed. The challenges and opportunities of eco-startups in the context of the spread of the European discourse of green economy are structured. The problems of ecological entrepreneurship in Ukraine are identified and the potential for overcoming them is determined. A conceptual scheme has been developed that reveals a cognitive relationship between components such as entrepreneurial activity, ecosystem stability, circularity principles, territorial disproportions, migration flows, green territory image, regional investments and establishes the impact of these components on the level of green development. The authors state the intensification of innovative entrepreneurship through ecological startups, and prove that systematized principles of circularity and a new look at the development of green territories are the driver of this process. It is proved that the implementation of these principles through ecological entrepreneurship allows to form and maintain the image of green territories and promotes the formation of a positive investment climate at regional level. The results of the study can be useful both for the state and regional management systems, since they substantiate the directions of formation of regional development policy, and for business structures in terms of determining the priorities and prospects of environmental development