Sustainability in Business Models - a literature-Review-based Design-Science-Oriented Research Agenda

Science and practice highlight the relevance of employing sustainability practices in consumption and production. A sustainable change requires the participation of society as well as companies and organizations. In addition, companies have to rethink their classical businesses and consider innovations for acting in an ecological, economic, and social way by enhancing and adapting their business models. Business models can be described in different ways such as textual (e. g. business plans) or in graphical frameworks (e. g. Business Model Canvas). Frameworks support the designing of business models and should provide the consideration of sustainability. This paper aims to answer how sustainability is represented in existing approaches for modelling business models. Therefore, we conduct a literature review including different databases, proceedings, and journals. We identify and categorise a total of 42 articles. As a first result of the synthesis, we determine a literature-based typology of extensions, adjustments and design principles for sustainable business models. In addition, we suggest a research agenda which (a) discusses further enhancements to design sustainable business models regarding modelling techniques, sustainability assessments and detail models as well as (b) highlights the importance of evaluating these approaches by recommending evaluation settings.

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