Toward a Sustainable Business Design: A Survey

Sustainable business is characterized by its facets to balance triple bottom lines (i.e., profit, planet, and people). In sustainable business design, it is crucial to consider interaction between the core business and external environment, which does not seem to influence the profit of the core business but necessary to explain their intended environmental and social value proposition. To construct a particular model of sustainable business, the paper conducted a survey on the study of business models and, in particular, sustainable business models (e.g., eco-innovations, sustainable innovations, product-service systems). The survey focuses on how the study models external environment and its influences on the core business characterized by “externality”. Through discussion on the findings of the literature review, three key issues to be addressed for constructing sustainable business model are identified: taxonomy of externality, identification of a set of models (i.e., aspect model), and identification of interrelationship among them. First and second issues clarify particular aspects of externality. By considering third issue, the designer is able to design sustainable business by integrating these aspects.