Business cases for sustainability: The role of business model innovation for corporate sustainability

Ecological and social innovations need new or modified business models to be successful and to unfold their positive ecological and social effects.

“Seen this way, the movement towards the upper right in Figure 2 represents market success with ecological and social innovations, such as emissions-free mobility or access to affordable health care, which need new or modified business models to be successful and to unfold their positive ecological and social effects (Schaltegger et al., 2012).”

Sustainability innovations require and thus motivate new or modified business models to enter and diffuse in the market and finally to create business cases.

“From Section 3 follows that sustainability innovations (e.g., new processes, products, or services) require and thus motivate new or modified business models to enter and diffuse in the market (Boons et al., 2013;Boons & Lüdeke-Freund, 2013) and finally to create business cases (Schaltegger et al., 2012).”

Sustainable entrepreneurs who excel at developing or innovating business models might be better positioned to exploit even radical innovations, despite relative competitive disadvantages.

“That is, sustainable entrepreneurs who excel at developing or innovating business models might be better positioned to exploit even radical innovations, despite their relative competitive disadvantages, which can result from higher (financial) costs or a lack of complementary assets such as established retail partners (Schaltegger et al., 2012).”

Designing and maintaining a business model is directly related to a firm's sustainability strategy.

“Furthermore, Schaltegger et al. (2012) argue that designing and maintaining a business model is directly related to a firm's sustainability strategy.”

The decision-makers' ambitions in embedding CE principles into their BMs are key factors influencing or limiting the achievement of impactful environmental and economic outcomes.

“Despite the fact that the CE-Driven BM Configurator offers a broad range of solution patterns (i.e., from more simplistic to more complex configurations) to prompt ideation, the decision-makers' ambitions in embedding CE principles to their BMs are key factors influencing or limiting the achievement of impactful environmental and economic outcomes [9,66].”