Sustainable Business Model Innovation Within a Complex Environment

Abstract

Sustainability is becoming an emerging issue since it attempts to fulfill current needs without sacrificing future generations. The role of the private sector is considered necessary in supporting sustainability, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Implementation of a sustainable business model (SBM) has the potential to enable support for sustainability. Many business organizations have claimed to produce an SBM, but many have failed or are insufficient to provide sustainability benefits due to complexity. Therefore, available concepts regarding principles in SBM innovation need to be improved to have greater capacity in dealing with complexity. This paper explores principles for SBM innovation and the relationships between the elements based on empirical evidence through a longitudinal case study in a technology-based organization in Indonesia’s agriculture sector. The results show that seven principles, so-called “ecosystem-centric principles,” are a building block to successful SBM innovation. One principle determined the success of the other principles, and as a whole, work simultaneously and systemically in creating SBM innovation. The business model combines several basic SBMs and develops as an accelerator type of business model and, in a particular phase, combines the model with the crisispreneur. Compared to other SBM principles, the ‘ecosystem-centric principles’ is superior to dealing with a complex environment.