Special Issue "Innovative and Sustainable Business Models and Practices"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2022.

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Carlos Martin-Rios
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, 1000 Lausanne 25, Switzerland
Interests: sustainable innovation; eco-innovation; innovation management; service innovation; sustainable hospitality and tourism

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is a key driver of innovation. Increasingly, sustainable management is being regarded as an opportunity for innovation, and not as a threat to a company. Sustainable business models and sustainable innovation practices define much of the current organizational sustainability agenda. Sustainable business models address a triple bottom line approach and redefine the value proposition, value chain and financial model to bring sustainable innovations to the market. Sustainable innovation is defined as innovation which purposely integrates economic, social and environmental value-creation all along the design of new products, processes and practices as well as new business models and value chains.

Research on sustainable business models and innovative practices attract considerable attention of multidisciplinary scholars. Yet, extant literature is still far from comprehensively integrating theoretical and methodological aspects to examine how sustainability-inspired innovations can be motivated by social, economic, organizational and environmental considerations, while at the same time contributing to financial returns. There is an urgent need for more research on sustainable practices through the lenses of different sectoral innovation systems, new business model perspectives, technological, organizational and social practices.

This special issue aims to stimulate scientifically grounded, interdisciplinary, practice-based research on the most salient aspects of innovative and sustainable business models and practices. It thus emphasizes the actual interdisciplinary sustainability research approaches, the solutions it provides and their dissemination and application.

Themes:

  • Sustainable business models;
  • Sustainable innovation as a source of competitive advantage;
  • Innovation and change management for sustainability;
  • Sectoral strategies for sustainability;
  • Sustainability-oriented service innovations;
  • Strategic corporate sustainability;
  • Sustainable resource management and innovative resource practices;
  • Innovation linked to corporate sustainability assessment and reporting, environmental sustainability governance (ESG), sustainability ratings and sustainability investors;
  • Collaborative, open innovation and user-driven innovation for sustainability.

Dr. Carlos Martin-Rios
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable business model
  • business model for sustainability
  • sustainable innovation
  • sustainability-oriented innovations sustainability strategy
  • sustainable production
  • sustainability in the tertiary sector
  • value creation
  • organizational performance

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

Article
Sustainability Buckets: A Flexible Heuristic for Facilitating Strategic Investment on Place-Dependent Sustainability Narratives
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9367; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169367 - 20 Aug 2021
Viewed by 259
Abstract
This article presents a heuristic framework to help respond to gaps in knowledge construction in sustainability transitions. Transition theory publications highlight concerns ranging from contentious understandings of sustainability to the need for generalisable conceptual frameworks around how place specificity matters in transitions. The [...] Read more.
This article presents a heuristic framework to help respond to gaps in knowledge construction in sustainability transitions. Transition theory publications highlight concerns ranging from contentious understandings of sustainability to the need for generalisable conceptual frameworks around how place specificity matters in transitions. The heuristic presented here is a flexible framework for developing place-dependent narratives of sustainability transitions grounded in investment choices. The sustainability buckets development resulted from the abduction and retroduction methods. It was also underpinned by a praxis-oriented mechanism from business (‘strategic investment buckets’), a transition theory conceptual framework (‘the multi-level perspective’—MLP), and a social sciences heuristic (‘sustainability cultures’). The sustainability buckets resulted from synthesising the critical literature with empirical findings drawn from two case studies in New Zealand. The heuristic proved helpful to navigate, organise, and code meanings and understandings of sustainability in the New Zealand agri-food context. It also helped facilitate dialogue with research participants from different backgrounds, such as government and business. The heuristic was designed to transform, remaining fit for purpose as transitions evolve. This article suggests the sustainability buckets could be used to enable investment opportunities for upscaling, reproducing, and transplanting transitions happening in distinct sectors and high-level systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Business Models and Practices)
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Article
Sustainability-Oriented Innovations in Food Waste Management Technology
Sustainability 2021, 13(1), 210; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13010210 - 28 Dec 2020
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1734
Abstract
Food is essential to our survival, yet the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that about 820 million people were undernourished in 2018. In this context, food waste generation is a particularly salient issue. Wasting food means missing opportunities [...] Read more.
Food is essential to our survival, yet the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that about 820 million people were undernourished in 2018. In this context, food waste generation is a particularly salient issue. Wasting food means missing opportunities to feed the growing world population and consuming scarce resources, such as land, water and energy used in the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food. Firms in HORECA (hospitality, restaurant and catering) represent a considerable share of total food waste and, more importantly, are characterized by an overall low sense of awareness about the sustainability-oriented innovation opportunities and challenges of minimizing food waste. This article draws on an in-depth case study to explore the use of technological advancements in downstream value chain. This case study draws on a tech startup providing services for HORECA companies to address a new way for companies to solve the food waste challenge. Adopting technological innovations to quantify and minimize wastage via collaborations with third-party companies can be a strategic and cost-effective way to supplement a company’s open innovation activities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Business Models and Practices)
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Article
Entrepreneurial Experience and Performance: From the Aspect of Sustainable Growth of Enterprises
Sustainability 2020, 12(18), 7351; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187351 - 08 Sep 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 856
Abstract
In the uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem, scholarly knowledge is bounded by the sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in academic circles on the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance. In adopting the meta-analysis method, we found a [...] Read more.
In the uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem, scholarly knowledge is bounded by the sustainable growth of entrepreneurial enterprises. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in academic circles on the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance. In adopting the meta-analysis method, we found a significant relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance based on an investigation of 45 independent samples (N = 18,752). We also examined theoretically derived moderators of this relationship referring to firm age, industry condition and experience type to test whether the moderating effects can explain the inconsistent research results on the relationship between entrepreneurial experience and entrepreneurial performance. The relationship was stronger for the high-tech industry than for low-tech industry, for the early business stage than for late business stage and for start-up experience compared to management experience, work experience and industry experience. Our research findings are meaningful for practitioners to achieve sustainable growth by better preserving and coordinating entrepreneurial experience in a dynamic environment. Further, these findings are also important for future research to analyze the factors triggering the heterogeneity of entrepreneurial experience and to investigate the extent to which the start-up experience is more capable of promoting entrepreneurial performance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Business Models and Practices)
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Article
Can Design for the Environment be Worthwhile? Green Design for Manufacturers Brands When Confronted with Competition from Store Brands
Sustainability 2020, 12(3), 1078; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12031078 - 03 Feb 2020
Viewed by 895
Abstract
To contribute to global sustainability, many manufacturers are starting to implement green product development and trying to provide environmentally friendly products. Although green products are environmentally beneficial to our society, the performance of green product development remains poor because of cannibalization from traditional [...] Read more.
To contribute to global sustainability, many manufacturers are starting to implement green product development and trying to provide environmentally friendly products. Although green products are environmentally beneficial to our society, the performance of green product development remains poor because of cannibalization from traditional alternatives at lower prices. This is particularly the case in the current unforgiving marketing reality in which many brand retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Tesco, and Carrefour, offer their own store brands as traditional alternatives. Although a large stream of research has studied the effects of competition on manufacturers’ green design, to the best of our knowledge, there is a dearth of research on the effects of competition from retailers’ store brands on manufacturers’ green design. To fill this gap, we present two models in which the manufacturer has an incentive to design for the environment, and the retailer has the flexibility to sell store brands (Model S), or it does not (Model N). Surprisingly, our analysis indicates that the presence of store brands may stimulate the manufacturer to release a new greener version of the national brand. Moreover, we find that although the presence of store brands is beneficial to the retailer and industry, it always hurts the manufacturer’s profitability. To incentivize the manufacturer to support Model S, we propose a two-part tariff contract. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative and Sustainable Business Models and Practices)
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