Dynamic business modeling for sustainability: Exploring a system dynamics perspective to develop sustainable business models

In the last decade, business models for sustainability have gained increasing attractionby corporate sustainability scholars with international conferences and scientificjournals encouraging the development of the debate on their design, use and innova-tion processes. Capitalizing on the basic principles, requirements, and methodologicallimitations found in the literature on sustainability‐oriented business model design,this paper aims to conceptualize a dynamic business modeling for sustainabilityapproach, which combines an adapted sustainable business model canvas and systemdynamics modeling.

To this end, the paper also illustrates the key operating principlesof the proposed approach through an exemplary application to Patagonia's businessmodel. Findings suggest that dynamic business modeling for sustainability may con-tribute to sustainable business model research and practice by introducing a systemicdesign tool, which frames environmental, social, and economic drivers of value gener-ation into a dynamic business model causal feedback structure, thus overcomingmethodological gaps of the extant business model design tools.