Dear Colleagues,

There is growing attention on business model innovation for sustainability (BMIS), both in academic research and practice. The awareness among businesses, politicians, and citizens makes it clear that our current economic system is causing enormous sustainability issues, which make a transition to a more sustainable, circular economic system inevitable. A sustainable business model is expected to create economic, environmental, and social value. However, since business model innovation for sustainability is often associated with high (investment) costs and a constraint of a firm’s profitability, sustainable business models are rejected (Geissdoerfer et al., 2017; Linder and Williander, 2017) or fail when implemented (Naor et al., 2018; Geissdoerfer et al., 2018; Evans et al., 2017; Bocken and Geradts, 2017).

business model innovation for sustainablity happens when there are one or more changes (1) in the target market (new types of costumers), (2) in the value chain (changing collaboration patterns, changes in power structure, etc.), or (3) in the firm’s value proposition (product innovation, ways of appropriating, pricing schemes, mix of products and services, etc.). Because of their interconnectedness, changing one element of a business model often implies changes in other elements of the business model, as well. This implies that BMIS involves for an organization a process of desiging an appropriate new business model by linking and integrating various elements of the new sustainable business model. Furthermore, it may also require redesigning the value change and implementing a new way of accounting value to resources, stocks, products, and services.

With this Special Issue on “Business Model Innovation for Sustainability”, we encourage researchers to contribute to discourse on how to develop new sustainable business models and value chains, with all the underlying challenges and opportunities. We welcome both qualitative and quantitative research, as well as theoretical constribitions on topics from various disciplines within business and economics, such as, but not limited to open innovation, (closed-loop) supply chain management, sustainaible finance, integrated reporting, ethical marketing, and sustainable consumer behavior.

References

Bocken, N. M., & Geradts, T. H. (2020). Barriers and drivers to sustainable business model innovation: Organization design and dynamic capabilities. Long Range Planning, 53(4), 101950.

Evans, S., Vladimirova, D., Holgado, M., Van Fossen, K., Yang, M., Silva, E. A. & Barlow, C. Y., (2017). Business Model Innovation for Sustainability: Towards a Unified Perspective for Creation of Sustainable Business Models. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26, 597-608.

Geissdoerfer, M., Savaget, P., Bocken, N. M., & Hultink, E. J. (2017). The Circular Economy–A new sustainability paradigm? Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 757-768.

Geissdoerfer, M., Vladimirova, D. & Evans, S., (2018). Sustainable business model innovation: A review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 198, 401-416.

Linder, M., & Williander, M. (2017). Circular business model innovation: inherent uncertainties. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26(2), 182-196.

Naor, M., Druehl, C. & Bernardes, E. S., (2018). Servitized business model innovation for sustainable transportation: Case study of failure to bridge the design-implementation gap. Journal of Cleaner Production, 170, 1219-1230.

Roome, N., & Louche, C. (2016). Journeying toward business models for sustainability: A conceptual model found inside the black box of organisational transformation. Organization & Environment, 29(1), 11-35.

Dr. Koen Dittrich
Dr. Maaike Lycklama à Nijeholt
Dr. Mirella Soyer
Guest Editors

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• circular economy
• sustainablity
• business model innovation
• value creation
• closed-loop supply chains
• sustainable finance
• integrated reporting
• sustainable consumption and production