Rethinking value creation: Value innovation for sustainability transitions

Business models for sustainability transitions is an emerging research field that investigates the roles of firm activities in contributing to much-needed fundamental, societal shifts to more sustainable modes of production and consumption. In an attempt to make this field more accessible to business practitioners, this paper reframes ‘contributing to’ in the more familiar, value-centered language of business model design, and positions the sustainability transition process itself as a stakeholder of the firm from a business model perspective, thereby suggesting that firms can ‘propose, create, capture, or destroy value’ for sustainability transitions. Doing so presents new opportunities for value innovation (business model innovation by rethinking the firm’s value proposition) for firms within sustainability transitions. The Resilience of Sustainability Transitions framework is used as a starting point for understanding transition resilience as a form of value for the transition process. This conceptualization of value for the transition highlights ways for firms to support and facilitate transitions beyond the current standard of developing and commercializing radical, sustainable innovations. Value creation by addressing resilience requirements, as suggested in this paper, is therefore a way for risk-shy, but politically powerful, incumbent firms to contribute positively to sustainability transitions without having to face the potential competency disruption often associated with radical innovation.