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Nancy Bocken

Visiting professor

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Sustainable business model experimentation by understanding ecologies of business models

Author

  • Nancy Bocken
  • Frank Boons
  • Brian Baldassarre

Summary, in English

Sustainable business model innovation is about creating superior customer and firm value by addressing societal and environmental needs through the way business is done. Business models require intentional design if they are to deliver aspired sustainability impacts. Scant research has been done on ‘ecologies’ of different business models in order to understand and improve these and create positive impact on the environment, society, economy and other key stakeholders. Hence, in this paper a novel framework is presented to enable a systemic form of sustainable business model experimentation. The framework is based on the recognition of three key issues which have not yet been sufficiently incorporated in the literature on sustainable business models: construct clarity, boundary setting and uncertainty about outcomes. These concepts are discussed first. Building on earlier work, the resulting framework incorporates potential side-effects and boundary setting based on the concept of an ‘ecology of business models’. Second, an approach is proposed that could stimulate more profound forms of sustainable business model innovation: The Ecology of Business Models Experimentation map. Third, the approach is illustrated through two cases. The approach could help minimise symbiotic dependency on less sustainable business models; help destroy unsustainable business models by outcompeting them; and maximise contributions to favourable institutional infrastructures for more sustainable business models. This paper contributes to research on sustainable business model innovation, design and experimentation by providing a potential approach for ‘business model ecology redesign’.

Department/s

  • The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics

Publishing year

2019

Language

English

Pages

1498-1512

Publication/Series

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume

208

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • Business model design
  • Business model for sustainability
  • Collaboration
  • Experimentation
  • Sharing economy
  • Sustainable business models

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0959-6526