Sustainable Value Creation for Advancing Sustainability Transition: An Approach to Integrate Company- and System-Level Sustainability

Abstract

While a sustainable business model is recognised as providing a link between an individual company and the larger socio-technical system to which it belongs and as leveraging wider sustainability transition, relatively little integration between business and management research and system transition research has been done to explore how companies enable wider sustainability transition through their business models. Based on a review of the prior literature on sustainable business models and sustainability transition and a single in-depth case study, this study proposes sustainable value creation, which is a central part of any sustainable business model, as an approach to integrate company-level sustainability into broader system-level sustainability transition. This study contributes to the literature by describing how companies make their business sustainable, leverage wider sustainability transition, and advance system-level sustainability through sustainable value creation. For managers, this study offers five key recommendations, which highlight the most crucial points to be considered for adopting a sustainable value creation approach.