Business Models for Sustainability: Innovative Regional Business Models as Subject and Trigger of a Sustainable Change in the Energy Industry

Research output: Contributions to collected editions/worksArticle in conference proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Authors

Are ‘conventional’ business models systematically linked to problems like the overload of human and natural systems and the excessive exploitation of resources? And, to ask for the opposite, are ‘alternative’ business models better able to promote positive effects—positive in terms of an ecologically and socially sustainable corporate behaviour? If the current conventional structures tend to harm man and the environment, what is the role of the underlying business models, i.e. the business logic of earning money related to possibilities of promoting corporate sustainability? The approach at issue seeks to find out how innovative enterprises and their business logics may contribute to mitigate central sustainability problems. The pillars of this research are: (i) sustainable entrepreneurship, including sustainability innovations; (ii) the business case for sustainable energy, including its realisation as viable business; and (iii) a focus on local or regional production systems. The research interest is to open the ‘black boxes’ in which sustainable entrepreneurs discover and capitalise on business cases for sustainable energy and the theoretical and empirical ways these business cases can be realised. While the applied concept of distributed economies helps to identify quality driven development strategies of local or regional production systems, sustainable entrepreneurship and the business model perspective allow for focusing on the business management aspects.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationJoint actions on climate change
Number of pages20
Publication date2009
ISBN (print)978-87-91830-30-3
Publication statusPublished - 2009
EventConference: Joint Actions on Climate Change - 2009 - Aalborg, Denmark
Duration: 08.06.200910.06.2009
http://www.aesop-planning.eu/activities/en_GB/2011/01/20/readabout/8-10-june-2009-joint-actions-on-climate-change-aalborg-denmark