Green business models in the construction sector: an analysis of outcomes and benefits

Abstract

Purpose-Green business models (GBMs) in the construction sector represent the logic of green value creation and capture. Hence, the call to examine GBMs is growing ever louder. The aim is to identify benefits of GBMs by adopting five essential elements of the GBM from the literature: green value proposition (GVP); target group (TG); key activities (KA); key resources (KR); and financial logic (FL). Design/methodology/approach Nineteen semi-structured interviews are conducted with construction sector practitioners and academics in the UK. Thematic analysis is used to obtain benefits of GBMs. Further, the Interpretive Ranking Process (IRP) is used to examine which elements of the GBM have a dominant role in providing benefits to construction businesses. Findings-The benefits are grouped into three themes: credibility/reputation benefits; financial benefits; and long-term viability benefits. The IRP model shows that the element of KR is the most important when evaluated against these three benefit themes. Implications-Linking GBM elements and benefits will help companies in the construction sector to analyse the business case of embracing environmental sustainability. Originality/value-This research is one of the few empirical academic works investigating the benefits of GBMs in the construction sector. The IRP method is a novel contribution to GBMs and construction research.

Collaborative business model development for home energy renovations

“…Rødsjø et al (2010) discussed the need for a market development perspective in innovation phases, and highlighted the importance companies should attach to innovation learning, finding complementary partners and communicating customer needs, when introducing advanced home renovation business. For the home renovation sector, authors now confirm the attractiveness and importance of new business models (Aho 2013;Artola et al 2016;Abuzeinab et al 2018) and the need for complementary partners for collaboration (Mlecnik 2013). Now, an innovation prospect is to embed collaborative business model development into the home renovation sector.…”

“…The development of business model research in the building and construction disciplines is still in an emerging stage (Abuzeinab et al 2018). Using a business model as an intermediary market device between different innovation actors (Doganova and Eyquem-Renault 2009) can provide new insights, for example, on how consortia should address customer values and activities.…”

“…Various authors suggested that a better understanding of the business case regarding value creation and exploration of new working methods-such as business model development-can address particular learning and speed up market development (Pitt et al 2009;Häkkinen and Belloni 2011;Mahapatra et al 2013;Aho 2013;Al-Saleh and Mahroum 2015;Abuzeinab et al 2018). Particularly, Sommer (2012) suggested the need for qualitative methods to better understand the management framework for business models.…”

Swedish construction MSEs: simply renovators or renovation service innovators?

“…For this to happen, the MSEs are expected to partner with other actors in the market (Rødsjø, Prendergast, Mlecnik, Haavik, & Parker, 2010) and form collaborative business models for the services they provide (Mlecnik, 2013). The attractiveness and importance of those new business models is highlighted by various researchers (Abuzeinab, Arif, Quadri, & Kulonda, 2018;Aho, 2013;Artola, Rademaekers, Williams, & Yearwood, 2016).…”

The Role of SMEs’ Green Business Models in the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy: Differences in Their Design and Degree of Adoption Stemming from Business Size

“…First, in the literature on green BMs and sustainable BMs, we include the literature on decarbonization, an important topic which, nevertheless, is not explicit in most of this literature [23,32,39], with a few exceptions in the energy sector [25,40]. Second, we focus on SMEs that, in general, have been understudied, except for some case studies showing selection bias toward environmental proactivity [28,41,42].…”