Business Models For Sustainability

Over the last two decades, it has become increasingly clear that our current ways of living and organizing are neither environmentally nor socially sustainable. Research shows that current climate changes and dramatic decreases in global biodiversity are a direct result of human activity.

Sustainability challenges take many forms. To give an example, research increasingly points to the negative consequences of our global love for plastic. Arguably, plastic has many amazing properties, including being recyclable. However, research also increasingly points to plastic’s detrimental effects on the planet and people—for example, through microplastics ending up in the oceans and then in the fish and seafood that we eat. Some problems that we face with social sustainably are a direct consequence of business activities—for example, exploitation of people in global supply chains in the form of unsafe working conditions or less-than-minimum-wage pay. Exploitation can also take the form of child labor, which continues to be a problem. Social sustainability challenges also arise as a result of global warming, with people already living in precarious conditions often carrying the biggest cost—for example, losing an entire cotton harvest due to heavy rain. In this module, we will begin to see how companies are part of the problem but also part of the solution to the sustainability crisis that the world is facing. Companies can play an all-important role in changing current unsustainable practices through innovative and sustainable products, services, and business models. In this module, we will briefly introduce you to some central problems related to our current ways of running businesses. We will introduce you to the concept of business models and discuss how a sustainable business model is different from what we might think of as a conventional or linear business model. Finally, you will also get to meet the CEO and CMO of the B-Corp Too Good To Go, who will share their experiences setting up a company with a mission of fighting food waste.

Building on the concept of sustainable business models introduced in Module 1, we will explore what innovation is and its benefits in this module. If we are to change towards more sustainable organisational practices, it is paramount that we innovate on products and services and the way we run businesses. You will learn about sustainable business model innovation, key principles of sustainable business model innovation, market evolution and the role of consumers, and various tools to develop sustainable business models.

We will exemplify the various aspects of sustainable business model innovation through a number of industry and business examples, such as Mobility, Fairphone, and Interface, while discussing their approaches to sustainability. We will also introduce you to the Danish print company KLS Pure Print. You will learn about KLS Pure Print’s journey from an old-school, traditional print business to becoming a front-runner in sustainable printing. Because of this shift, the company is still in business. Finally, we will also take a closer look at social innovation with Professor David Murillo from ESADE through a careful analysis of the UK-based Behavioral Insights Team (BIT).

In this module, Lars Jacob and Svening will take us on a deep dive into the concept of the circular economy. Through a number of examples from various industries, they will discuss the main differences between linear and circular economies, and they will explore some key characteristics of circular business models. Starting with a circular economy, they will introduce concepts such as the access and collaborative economy, the all-important role of collaboration and partnerships for sustainable futures, as well as different levels of “recycling.”

In this module, you will also have the chance to meet some of the brave front-runners of circular business models, like the Dutch jeans brand MUD Jeans, the French online marketplace for carpooling BlaBlaCar, and the Danish children’s clothing library Vigga.

In this module, we will further explore concepts introduced in this course’s previous modules. Our main focus will be on how companies work with sustainability in practice and what challenges and opportunities they face in doing so. First, Professor Esben Rahbek Gjerdrum Pedersen will introduce the concept of strategic planning and implementation and the relationship between a strategy and a business model. We will then continue by exploring how companies work with value propositions, customer interfaces, supply chains, and financial models in reality. Finally, we will look into sustainable communication and marketing and what role they play in transforming companies towards sustainability.