Sustainable business model innovation is an emerging topic, but only few tools are currently available to assist companies in sustainable business modelling. This paper works towards closing this gap by bringing together ‘design thinking’ and ‘sustainable business model innovation’ to refine the creative process of developing sustainable value propositions and improve the overall business modelling process. This paper proposes a new workshop framework based on a value mapping process, which was developed by literature synthesis, expert interviews, and multiple workshops. The framework was transferred into a workshop routine and subsequently tested with companies and students. The resulting ‘Value Ideation’ process comprises value ideation, value opportunity selection, and value proposition prototyping. The integration of design thinking into the innovation process helps to create additional forms of value and include formerly underserved stakeholders in the value proposition. Thus, the Value Ideation process helps companies to improve their performance while becoming more sustainable. Workshop evaluations revealed that the Value Ideation process assists companies in enhancing their value proposition by including positive economic, societal, and environmental value and a wider range of stakeholder interests. The ‘design thinking’ elements stimulate the ideation process and help to harmonise often conflicting stakeholder interests.

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Business model innovation (BMI) tools have become mainstream as entrepreneurs and managers seek systematic approaches to initiate business models (BM). However these tools, for example the Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) Business Model Canvas, while offering tidy and structured formats, may not adequately capture the complexity of value propositions for multiple stakeholders with potentially competing demands. In order to address this issue, the researchers first critiqued extant BMI tools, before designing the Cambridge Honeycomb Business Model Tool ™ - each building block is a hexagonal shape that collectively composes a hive-type structure. The Honeycomb incorporated the capacity of the Cambridge Value Mapping Tool ™ to articulate the value proposition by breaking it down into multiple value exchanges. A prototype Honeycomb Tool was tested internally with the research team in November 2015. Subsequently, following refinements the tool was piloted with a large fashion retailer’s team during a collaborative two-day BMI workshop. Initial results indicate that the tool’s infinitely expandable hexagonal cellular structure, where cells are introduced independently allows greater analysis of the ‘Value proposition’ by scrutinising various value exchanges between multiple stakeholders, e.g. society and the environment. Value was composed of both tangible and intangible benefits. The pilot process revealed that the Honeycomb is effective in generating not only general BMs with an in-depth analysis of value propositions, but also sustainable BMs. Sustainability in fashion retailing is particularly fraught as intense competition creates time and cost pressures - simultaneously customers and NGOs add to the burden with social and environmental concerns. Consequently, the Cambridge Honeycomb Business Model Tool contributes to academic knowledge by building upon other BMI tools and bridging Value Mapping approaches. For practice, the unbounded structure of the Honeycomb Tool cells helps teams undertake detailed interrogation of BMs, which balance the needs of conflicting interest stakeholders.@en

Business model innovation is an important lever for change to tackle pressing sustainability issues. In this paper, ‘sufficiency’ is proposed as a driver of business model innovation for sustainability. Sufficiency-driven business models seek to moderate overall resource consumption by curbing demand through education and consumer engagement, making products that last longer and avoiding built-in obsolescence, focusing on satisfying ‘needs’ rather than promoting ‘wants’ and fast-fashion, conscious sales and marketing techniques, new revenue models, or innovative technology solutions. This paper uses a case study approach to investigate how companies might use sufficiency as a driver for innovation and asserts that there can be a good business case for sufficiency. Business models of exemplar cases are analysed and insights are gained that will contribute to future research, policy makers and businesses interested in exploring sufficiency.@en

Circular business models are increasingly viewed as a key driver for business competitiveness and sustainability. Yet it is unclear what the positive (or negative) environmental impact of such new business models might be. Existing methods such as Life Cycle Assessment and Mass Flow Analysis, typically more suited for product-level and material-level environmental assessment respectively, may be modified to assess the impact of new circular business models. However, these might be too time and resource-intensive to effectively guide decision-making. Building on earlier work on circular design and business models, the performance economy and life cycle and systems thinking, this work proposes a list of guiding principles to start assessing the impact of new circular business models. The guiding principles are organised according to the following high-level strategies: Slowing effects; Closing effects; Life cycle effects, and Systems effects. Slowing effects are linked to long lasting products and extending product life as part of the new business model. Closing effects relate to the potential for recycling, or product life post-consumer use, as a result of the circular business model innovation. Life cycle effects are the effects not yet captured within these slowing and closing effects, which arise across the product life cycle from raw material sourcing up until production, transport, use and disposal of products. Finally, Systems effects are the wider impacts of circular business model innovation. For each high-level strategy key questions were formulated to assess the environmental impact reduction of the new circular business model. It was found that the strategies and guiding principles help stimulate debate on the environmental direction of new circular business models. This work has provided insights to guide a potential direction for assessing the environmental impact of new circular business models, and added to the sparse body of literature in this field.@en

Business experimentation is a key avenue for accelerating change for
sustainability. In contrast to experimentation in natural sciences, benefitting from
controlled situations, business experimentation aims to explore the diverse possibilities that a business could create value from, or understand what works in which particular situations in a real life business context. While at present most popular with start-ups, this paper argues that large businesses can also find inspiration in business experimentation to develop sustainable business models and accelerate positive change for sustainability. Five illustrative cases are included of business experimentation for sustainability by focusing on pivots (modifications) in the business model. This paper only scratches the surface of the potential impactful new research field of business (model) experimentation for sustainability. Future work on sustainable business experimentation for start-ups and mature businesses is viewed as a powerful future research avenue to accelerate change in industries.@en

Most of the world's poor live in developing markets and face unmet needs in core areas such as education, health, energy, sanitation and financial services. This offers businesses a vast opportunity for growth as these economies emerge from low-income to middle-income status. Social businesses in particular address a social need while generating profits typically reinvested into the business itself, but there is limited understanding of the ways through which social businesses achieve scale. This paper investigates how social businesses can scale up. First, we define scaling up as “increasing the number of customers or members of a business as well as expanding its offer and maximising its revenues until it
reaches millions of people.” Second, using three in-depth case studies of social businesses that successfully scaled up according to these definitions, BRAC, Aravind and Amul, we identify scaling up strategies for social businesses. We identified market penetration, market development, product development and diversification as key strategies at different stages of business maturity. We find that there are two ways of increasing income generated that are linked to these four strategies: increasing revenue per stream and diversifying revenue streams. Our findings give insight to companies aiming to pursue social businesses and adds to the sparse literature on scaling up social businesses. A fruitful future
research avenue would be to investigate the best sequence for applying these scaling strategies across companies and sectors over time.@en

This paper provides a practical tool and language to position your business in a circular context and to identify gaps and opportunities to transition to a circular business strategy.@en

The transition within business from a linear to a circular economy brings with it a range of practical challenges for companies. The following question is addressed: What are the product design and business model strategies for
companies that want to move to a circular economy model? This paper develops a framework of strategies to guide designers and business strategists in the move from a linear to a circular economy. Building on Stahel, the terminology
of slowing, closing, and narrowing resource loops is introduced. A list of product design strategies, business model strategies, and examples for key decision-makers in businesses is introduced, to facilitate the move to a circular economy. This framework also opens up a future research agenda for the circular economy.
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