Sustainability orientation in business models of Swiss start-ups

Abstract

Research on Sustainable Business Models of start-ups currently focuses on those which pursue a sustainability goal as a main aspect and at least also follow an ethical motivation, possibly in addition to the profit motive. This paper aims to firstly identify useful criteria for describing sustainability in business models and secondly does an investigation on the sustainability orientation and implementation in business models of participating start-ups in the Swiss Innovation Challenge, a business plan competition. As sustainability was no criterion in the application process, many of the start-ups didn’t have a strong sustainability orientation. It will be examined to what extent these start-ups take sustainability aspects into account, and which ones in detail. Secondly, it is examined which business model types are used here in order to identify prevailing types and patterns for start-ups that are not selected for their sustainability orientation. The 25 start-up teams were interviewed with a semi-structured interview guide, including an evaluations of sustainability criteria. Almost all start-ups have a strong profit orientation and many also consider sustainability in their business model, though mostly with only one field of action. The linear business model is dominant and only few start-ups contribute to the circular economy. Another outcome of the survey is that the sustainable business model patterns should be adapted for this target group of start-ups not geared towards sustainability for future research.