Sustainable Business Model.org

SustainableBusinessModel.org is a platform made by dedicated researchers to support the growing community of experts interested in business models for sustainability. The following people are lending their hands to this project.

Florian Lüdeke-Freund

Florian initiated SustainableBusinessModel.org. Florian is a Lecturer at ESCP Europe Business School, where he holds the Chair for Corporate Sustainability, and Research Fellow at the Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM) (since 2014), Germany, ESCP Europe’s SustBusy Research Center (since 2017), and Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Denmark (2016-2017). Florian is fully dedicated to one idea: to unfold the business model’s potential for corporate sustainability management and sustainable entrepreneurship – in theory and practice. In 2016, he co-edited an Organization & Environment special issue on “Business Models for Sustainability”. He is also specialising in “Values-Based Innovation Management”. Selected publications are available from Research Gate and SSRN. His article “Business Models for Sustainable Innovation“, together with Frank Boons, is one of the most-cited articles on BMfS.

Nancy Bocken

Nancy is associate professor at TU Delft and senior research associate at the University of Cambridge, interested in sustainable business models and other ways to connect the challenges of sustainable consumption and production. She is also Fellow at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, which delivers executive education in sustainability. In 2013, Nancy was a visiting Fellow at Yale University, where she was lecturing, running workshops and conducting research on sustainable business models. Nancy is also blogging on http://nancybocken.com about her sustainability and business model research.

Frank Boons

Frank is a Professor of Innovation and Sustainability at the Sustainable Consumption Institute and Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. His interest in the relationship between business models and sustainability relates to his conviction that firms need to adopt a system boundary that is wider than the single firm, if they want to contribute to solving current problems of climate change and resource scarcity. In 2009 Frank published the book “Creating Ecological Value”, which presents a theoretical framework that fits well with the business model concept. His article “Business Models for Sustainable Innovation“, together with Florian Lüdeke-Freund, is among the most downloaded articles published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Idil Gaziulusoy

Idil is Principal Researcher at Victorian Eco-innovation Lab, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne. She is a transdisciplinary design researcher focusing on system innovations for sustainability with a particular focus on linking micro-level innovations with macro-level innovations. She develops theories, tools and methods to link the day to day activities and strategic decisions of design and innovation teams to the longer-term, systemic and radical transformations which need to take place at the societal level to achieve sustainability. Idil has worked as a consultant and lecturer in Turkey and New Zealand before moving to Melbourne. She is also a visiting researcher at the Design for Sustainability Research Group at the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands.

Martin Geissdoerfer

Martin is a doctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge. Martin is co-founder of the social enterprise Favalley and has industry experience working in project management at Siemens and in technical consulting at KUKA. He has worked for Delft University of Technology on the EU FP7 ResCoM project and has experience in circular product design, production technology, and sustainable manufacturing research and teaching. Martin investigates how organisations move to more sustainable business models, why most of them fail in the process, and how we can help them to succeed more often.

Matthew J. Hannon

Matthew is a Research Associate at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. He is interested in the potentially important role sustainable business model innovation could play in driving forward sustainability transitions, particularly in the energy sector. To date his research has primarily focused on how the application of the service-based Energy Service Company (ESCo) model in the UK has triggered wider socio-technical system change. His PhD thesis (2012) was entitled “Co-evolution of innovative business models and sustainability transitions: The case of the Energy Service Company (ESCo) model and the UK energy system”.

Erik G. Hansen

Erik is Visiting Professor of Energy Transition Management at the Innovation Incubator, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany, and is associated to the Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM). His main research fields are sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI), sustainable entrepreneurship, and small and medium-sized enterprises in the context of the (German) “Energiewende”. His interest in business models for sustainability stems from the insight that the business model is often a key enabler for more radical approaches to sustainability-oriented innovation – a thought which was also explicated in his 2009 seminal article “Sustainability Innovation Cube – A Framework to Evaluate Sustainability-Oriented Innovations” (International Journal of Innovation Management).

Nabil Harfoush

Nabil co-founded and convenes the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group (SSBMG) at OCAD University’s Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab). Nabil has over 42 years of experience as an engineer, technology strategist, entrepreneur, and executive, and he is a serial entrepreneur, founder or co-founder of several companies. He consulted for enterprises, national governments, and international organizations including the World Bank, WHO, UNESCO, and the International Development Research Center. Nabil teaches business model and policy innovation in the Strategic Foresight & Innovation Masters Program at OCAD University. One of his recent publications is about “Developing Sustainable Business Models”.

Boukje Huijben

Boukje is an assistant professor in the Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship and Marketing (ITEM) group of Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. She works on topics related to the ongoing energy transition using insights from transition studies, business models and wider management literature. Previous work includes amongst others a study on the role of governmental policy in solar energy market development and the relation to business model design as well as business models for energy efficiency services. She has a strong passion for bridging the gap between science and society as well as developing innovative educational programs for training today’s and tomorrow’s sustainable energy professionals.

Adam Jabłoński

Adam is Associate Professor at WSB University in Poznań, Poland, Director of the Institute of Management and Quality Sciences at WSB University in Poznań. President of the Management Board of OTTIMA plus Sp. z o.o. based in Katowice. President of the Management Board of the Southern Railway Cluster, Katowice. He holds a PhD in Economic Sciences, specializing in Management Science. Working as a management consultant since 1997, his experience and expertise has grown through his contact with a number of leading companies in Poland and abroad. He is author of a variety of studies and business analyses in the strategic management, value based management, sustainable business models, digital business models, social business models, risk management, digital safety and corporate social responsibility fields. He has (co-) authored several monographs and over 200 scientific articles in the field of management, published both in Poland and worldwide. Adam’s scientific interests focus on the issues of modern and efficient business model design, including sustainable business models, digital business models and the principles of corporate value-building strategies that integrate corporate social responsibility, implementing the strategy and cybersecurity in the organization.

Liina Joller

Liina is a researcher and PhD candidate at University of Tartu, Estonia. She is writing her doctoral dissertation on eco-innovation in business models, focusing on energy efficiency issues in different business sectors. A global networker by nature, she is continuously interested to share her views with like-minded scholars and bridge the knowledge gap between business and academia.

Alexandre Joyce

Alexandre works as an advisor in sustainable product design for the Institute for product development (IPD). In concert with the leaders of the Quebec manufacturing industry, he helps innovation teams take environmental concerns into account during the design phase and integrate sustainability in their product development process. Alexandre completed a master’s degree in Design and Complexity where he conducted research on eco-design. He is certified as a New Product Development professional (NPDP) by the PDMA. Alexandre is also an active figure in the community as a member of the board of administration of Option-Consommateurs whose mission is to protect consumers from injustice. He is a member of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group (SSBMG).

Kerli Kant Hvass

Kerli Kant Hvass is an industrial PhD fellow at the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). Her research interest includes business model innovation and cross-sectoral partnerships for sustainability and various aspects related to second hand retailing, extended producer responsibility and closed loop supply chains. Her PhD research is focusing on the fashion industry and business model innovation for prolonged life of clothes through reuse, recycling and closed loop fashion systems for the purpose of circular economy.

Sebastian Knab

Sebastian is a PhD researcher at Universität Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics, Chair of Business Ethics and Management. His research focuses on business model innovation in the context of the sustainability transition in the electric power industry. In their 2013 article “Collaborative business modelling for systemic and sustainability innovations” (International Journal of Technology Management) Sebastian and colleagues developed the “Collaborative Business Modeling (CBM)” method to facilitate the generation of business models for systemic innovations. Before joining Universität Hamburg, Sebastian was a project manager for innovation management at the EICT, Berlin, and a research assistant at Technische Universität Berlin, Chair of Sustainable Electric Networks and Sources of Energy.

Susan C. Lambert

Susan is an Associate Professor at the University of South Australia Business School. Her interest in the theoretical nature of business models dates back to the 1990s. Currently she is researching the use of the business model in articulating sustainable business practices. Susan is one of the very few scholars with a clear focus on business model theory. Her PhD thesis (2010) was entitled “Progressing Business Model Research Towards Mid-Range Theory Building”.

Minttu Laukkanen

Minttu is a researcher and PhD student at the department of Value Network Management in Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), Finland. The goal of her research is to understand how the transition towards more sustainable business models will be achieved. The research increases understanding on sustainable business model innovation by examining the favourable conditions and mechanisms through which sustainability could be effectively built in business models. She is also interested in understanding how to recognise new sustainability opportunities for firms and to build competitiveness in business models through sustainability.

Lars Moratis

Lars Moratis is Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility at Antwerp Management School and Professor of Sustainable Business at NHTV University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. His research interests are responsible management education, sustainability-drive business modelling, the credibility of corporate CSR claims, and CSR standards. He is also the founder of ImpactAcademy. He has written and co-edited several books and various academic and practitioner-oriented articles on these topics. He can be reached at lars.moratis@ams.ac.be.

Samuli Patala

Samuli is a PhD researcher at Lappeenranta University of Technology, School of Business and Management. His thesis, scheduled to be completed in September 2016, focuses on advancing sustainable innovations in industrial markets. Samuli’s research interests include collaborative networks for sustainability, value propositions for sustainable technologies and energy transitions. In their 2016 article, Samuli and his colleagues developed a model for developing sustainable value propositions for industrial offerings. Samuli is also known for his work on collaborative networks for sustainability, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

Frederik Plewnia

Frederik is a doctoral researcher at the Technical University of Dresden and part of the interdisciplinary Boysen-TU Dresden research group on sustainable energy systems. Furthermore, he was also a visiting researcher at the newly established Centre for Social Innovation Management of the University of Surrey. To date, his research has focused on understanding and structuring concepts of the sharing economy and how these might contribute to sustainable development. Currently, he is investigating how business models of the sharing economy can be applied within the energy sector to promote the transition towards renewable energies.

Romana Rauter

Romana Rauter is a specialist in the field of innovation and sustainability management. She works as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Systems Sciences, Innovation and Sustainability Research at University of Graz. She received her doctorate in Social and Economic Sciences with a thesis addressing the topic of inter-organisational knowledge transfer between research organisations and SMEs. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Nijmegen School of Management at the Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 2014. Her current main research interests include open innovation, sustainable innovation, new and sustainable business models, strategic sustainability management and knowledge transfer.

Eugenia Rosca

Eugenia is a research associate and PhD student at Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany. Her doctoral dissertation is on sustainable business models for Base of the Pyramid in developing countries, with a focus on how co-creation with consumers and non-business actors lead to sustainable business models. Her research interest expand to various aspects related to sustainability for Base of the Pyramid actors, such as frugal innovation, sustainability ecosystems and value chain models.

Antony Upward

Antony co-founded and collaborates with the 150+ academic and practitioner members of the the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group hosted by the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Antony is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC), Chartered Software Engineer (C.Eng), Member of the British Computer Society (MBCS).  Recently he was awarded a unique Masters of Environmental Studies (MES) in Business Model Design and Sustainability and a Graduate Diploma in Business and the Environment from York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and Schulich School of Business.  His thesis title was “Towards an Ontology and Canvas for Strongly Sustainable Business Models: A Systemic Design Science Exploration“.  A ~3 minute audio/visual introduction to this work is here. You can read more of Antony’s background and find links to his blogs and other internet presence here.

Doroteya Vladimirova

Doroteya Vladimirova is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Industrial Sustainability, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. She leads research on value innovation and business transformations towards a sustainable future. Doroteya is interested in discovering and managing innovations that integrate sustainability into the core logic of the firm. Her work bridges the gap between academia and industry and translates academic research into business practice. Doroteya holds a PhD from Cranfield University. Her dissertation entitled “Transformation of traditional manufacturers towards servitized organisations” proposed a way of managing the servitization of product-centric manufacturers on their journey towards service-oriented business models. Doroteya brings extensive practical experience to her research. Prior to undertaking her doctorate, her career spanned over a decade in the fields of international affairs with national and foreign governments, and international business with one of the world’s largest automakers.

Peter E. Wells

Peter is a Professor of Business and Sustainability, and Director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff Business School where his work has ranged across spatial industrial development, economics, organisational theory, industrial ecology, technological change, transitions theory, business models and sustainability – all through an applied focus on the global automotive industry. Professor Wells has over 550 publications reaching academia, industry, policy and stakeholder audiences through traditional papers and books, internet publications and, more recently, webinars. His latest books are: “The automotive industry in an era of eco-austerity“ (Edward Elgar, 2010) and “Business models for sustainability“ (Edward Elgar, 2013).