Sustainable Business Model Design

Strategy needs a direction

Strategy rarely fails because of technical feasibility hurdles. It fails because it lacks fit with the future. A business model can be technically sound and still be a liability. The assumptions it rests on, about energy, inputs, regulation, customers and competitors, are shifting at once, and a model fixed around yesterday's assumptions will drift off course. Environmental limits are now one of those assumptions.

Value is made with stakeholders, not for them

Decarbonisation and the loss of nature are no longer a footnote on the context map. They change what customers pay for, what regulators allow and which inputs stay available. A firm that manages them as constraints will be outpaced by one that treats them as design conditions. That calls for strategy made with suppliers, customers, regulators and communities, not for them.

How the day runs

The workshop runs on the APres Sustainable Business Model Canvas, which extends conventional Business Model representations such as the Business Model Canvas to account for absolute environmental limits, and the stakeholders who depend on them.

The morning maps a case study business model and the strategy it serves. The afternoon introduces the APres canvas, and teams of three or four rework the model into one that creates value within environmental limits. Challenge first, then solution: name the obstacle, then design the response.

You leave with a practical understanding of how to map a business model, how to extend it to account for environmental sustainability with the APres Canvas, a clear view of external context vulnerabilities that apply, and an understanding of the importance of identifying workable alternatives that can open new opportunities for the business.