Sustainable Business Models: A Systematic Review of Approaches and Challenges in Manufacturing

Abstract

Objective: There is an ongoing need for businesses to strive to maintain ideals within environmental, economic and social values – commonly known as the triple bottom line. Manufacturing as a sector has advanced drastically and the literature on sustainable business models in this sector has emerged. The purpose of this paper is to analyze sustainable business models in manufacturing and the approaches and challenges faced in creating and implementing them.

Methods: This paper uses a systematic approach to review the literature. Sustainable business models are identified and classified within different industry areas and strategies and challenges emerge from the literature.

Results: The findings indicate that there is some empirical work done in investigating the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability in manufacturing. Overall, there is an ongoing transition to sustainable business models in varying divisions of industry. However, the creation and delivery of sustainable economic value is still unexplored.

Conclusions: The research provides insight to researchers and practitioners on how organizations implement sustainability while delivering value to their stakeholders. It also provides new avenues for conducting research in unexplored strategies of sustainable business modelling.

Keywords: sustainable business models, sustainability, manufacturing