Tilburg University
Summary
Sustainable
entrepreneurship
Summary of all the slides and mandatory reading
1
,Week 1
The making of the ecopreneur - Isaac, 2002
Green Business = Did not start out that way but, once it was established, managers discovered the cost
and innovation and marketing advantages, if not the ethical arguments, for ‘greening’ their existing
enterprise.
Green - Green business = one that is designed to be green in its processes and products from scratch, as
a start-up, and, furthermore, is intended to transform socially the industrial sector in which it is located
towards a model of sustainable development.
Ecopreneurship = an ideal type that refers to a person who seeks to transform a sector of the economy
towards sustainability by starting up a business in that sector with a green design, with green processes
and with a life-long commitment to sustainability in everything that is said and done. ! notice the
difference with ecopreneurship in the model of schaltegger & wagner!. This definition is much closer to
the definition of sustainable entrepreneurship by schaltegger.
→ what drives ecopreneurs?
Existentialist commitment
If it is not only a money-making concern but also a mission of social consciousness and political
transformation in order to make the Earth a more sustainable place.
Ecopreneurs may be well advised to go to start up other green-green companies rather than
hanging on to one that enters an older, established ‘maintenance’ phase and that demands a
trustee manager role more than an entrepreneurial influence.
Examples:
Ben & Jerry’s, and their work with the Greyston Bakery
The Body Shop:
Sustainable business models - Bocken, Short, Rana & Evans
The route to a sustainable economy, will require the development of innovative Sustainable Business
Models (SBMs).
Sustainable Business Models will incorporate a triple bottom line approach and consider a wide range
of stakeholder interests, including environment and society. important in dirivng and implementing
corporate innovation for sustainability, can help embed sustainability into business purpose and
processes, and serve as a key driver of competitive advantage.
Business model = A business model articulates how the company will convert resources and capabilities
into economic value. It is …the organizational and financial ‘architecture’ of a business and includes
implicit assumptions about customers, their needs, and the behavior of revenues, costs and competitors
(Teece, 2010). → they are concerned with how the firm defines its competitive strategy through: design,
costs and revenue, value proposition and value network.
2
,Sustainable business model = build on the triple bottom line approach to define the firms purpose and
measure performance, include a wide range of stakeholders and thus consider the environment and
society as stakeholders.
Challenge: designing business models in such a way that enables the firm to capture economic
value for itself through delivering social and environmental benefits
Business model innovation for sustainability = Innovations that create significant positive and/or
significantly reduced negative impacts for the environment and/or society, through changes in the way
the organisation and its value-network create, deliver value and capture value (i.e. create economic
value) or change their value propositions. often involves changing “the way you do business”.
With careful business model redesign it is possible for mainstream businesses to more readily
integrate sustainability into their business and for new start-ups to design and pursue
sustainable business from the outset,
Key components of a business model:
Value proposition
o Product/ service offering to generate economic, social, ecological reterun
o Customer segments
Value creation and delivery
o Creation of value by seizing new business opportunities, new markets, new revenue
streams
o Key activities, resources, channels, partners, technology
Value capture
o Cost structure
o Revenue streams
Sustainable business model archetypes are introduced to describe groupings of mechanisms and
solutions that may contribute to building up the business model for sustainability. The archetypes are
classified in higher order groupings, which describe the main type of business model innovation:
Technological: archetypes with a dominant technical innovation component (e.g. manufacturing
process and product redesign)
Social: archetypes with a dominant social innovation component (e.g. innovations in consumer
offering, changing consumer behaviour)
Organizational: archetypes with a dominant organisational innovation change component (e.g.
changing the fiduciary responsibility of the firm).
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, 1. Maximize material productivity and energy efficiency
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