Sustainable Business Model Innovation Whitepaper

The worldwide competition among firms has become more complex, with conventional business models struggling to find appropriate solutions. Transforming their business model into a sustainable business model presents one leverage companies can apply to implement a shift, to find an answer to these challenges related to sustainability, and to stay competitive on the long run. Businesses who incorporate sustainability in their business model to have increased competitive advantage over competitors who do not transfer such principles into their processes. In this regard, prudent redesign helps firms to integrate sustainability more easily.

Due to a lack of case studies, companies find it challenging to understand how to innovate their business models, identify and design alternatives, and then assess and select the most adequate one. Therefore, this whitepaper studies the phenomena of Sustainable Business Model Innovation (SBMI) through focusing on incumbents’ activities, taking them as fundamentals of a transition towards sustainability. The focus of this study lies on identifying concrete processes and practices that enable incumbents to transform their business model into a sustainable business model.