The spotlight is shifting from the business case for action, to the business models needed to deliver both financial and extra-financial value in tomorrow’s world. A new Volans report – Breakthrough Business Models: Exponentially More Social, Lean, Integrated and Circular – is released today.
The report outlines 4 exponential characteristics of breakthrough business models, explored in John Elkington’s latest article on Medium:
- Social X: delivering positive impacts for people, in the present and in the future
- Lean X: optimizing the use of all forms of capital, including human and natural
- Integrated X: managing value creation across economic, social and environmental systems
- Circular X: sustaining inputs and outputs at their highest value in both technical and biological cycles
Commissioned by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, the report features case studies of pioneering companies and organisations across the globe – both large and small – that are exploiting a combination of exponential technologies and innovative new business models, and helping achieve the United Nations Sustainable Devleopment Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Examples of case studies featured include Philips, whose ‘Pay-per-lux’ model is transforming light from a product to a service; Covestro, whose ‘carbon productivity’ work represents an important step forward in terms of how companies think about their environmental inputs and outputs; Ekstep, an exciting young start-up in India providing access to learning opportunities for children through a new open-source education marketplace; and Provenance, a UK-based firm employing Blockchain technology to help companies increase transparency in their supply chains.
The report will feed into the Commission’s own flagship report on what the SDGs mean for business, to be launched in January 2017 at Davos. Volans will continue to uncover and spotlight the best examples of breakthrough business models on Project Breakthrough, our online showcase of “exponential sustainability” that was unveiled last week.