Tourism entrepreneurs adapted to regulations during COVID-19 by introducing creative solutions. The crisis was said to be a unique opportunity for innovating sustainable businesses. This study investigates crisis as a driver for innovation and its relevance to service design. Interviews with entrepreneurs are the empirical base that highlights that finetuning existing services is an established approach instead of innovative service design. Few expressed lessons were learned from the creative solutions made during the pandemic, suggesting that strategies for innovation need to be developed.

In a world of sustainability challenges, use-oriented product-service system seems promising to encourage resource efficiency. For this project, the concept is integrated in a sustainability-oriented interpretation of the business model Canvas. The aim was to identify enabling factors with a use-oriented business model. A case study was conducted on rental business models in the outdoors apparel industry in Scandinavia. The key findings indicate that companies introducing use-oriented services struggle with increased transportation, linear technological systems, large financial capital needs and cultural barriers. To overcome these challenges the case study points to the importance of partnerships. Furthermore, this paper suggests expanding the Business Model Canvas framework with three additional elements: reduced material flows, reverse logistics and cultural adoption factor. The extended Canvas model can be used as a conceptual tool for companies when developing rental services.

This paper introduces business model life cycle assessment (BM-LCA), a new method for quantifying the environmental impacts of business models. Such a method is needed to guide business decisions towards decoupling economic activity from environmental impact. BM-LCA takes the business model itself as the unit of analysis and its economic performance as the basis of comparison. It can be applied to any type of business model involving material or resource use. In BM-LCA, monetary flows are coupled to material and energy flows. The methodology expands on conventional life cycle assessment (LCA) by elaborating the goal and scope definition and dividing it into two phases. The first descriptive phase details the business models to be compared. It includes a mapping of product chain actors and identifying business operations and transactions related to the product. The second coupling phase defines a profit-based functional unit and sets up the coupling equations expressing the economic relations to the product. Thereafter, conventional LCA procedures are followed to assess environmental impacts. The key innovation on LCA methodology is the development of a functional unit that captures the economic performance of a business model and links it to a product system. BM-LCA provides thus an important link between LCA and business competitive advantage.

Recent years have seen much interest in business models as vehicles towards sustainability, cf. [1]. Conventional LCA, however, fails to properly capture the environmental impacts of a business model. Here, we introduce the background and the principles of Business Model LCA, a new LCA methodology for the assessment of environmental performance of business models. Methodological innovations are based on an understanding of the difference and relatedness between product and business. The key innovation is that BM-LCA centres its analysis on the ’business model’ instead of the ’product function’ as in conventional LCA. This requires the functional unit to represent the business (e.g., as ‘profit per time unit’) and the need to couple the monetary flows of the business to the material and energy flows of the product system via a set of ’coupling’ equations. BM-LCA contributes to environmental business analysis and could open up a new avenue of research where LCA and business analysts collaborate on business model innovation for sustainability.

Business model (BM) innovation for sustainability is hampered by a lack of tools for environmental assessment and guidance at the BM level. Conventional life cycle assessment (LCA) neglects the economic and socio-technical mechanisms within a BM, and tools based on the BM canvas (BMC) cannot provide recommendations substantiated by environmental data. Here, a new method, BM-LCA, is applied to a case comparing the selling and renting of jackets, using profit as basis of comparison. Results identify how business parameters influence environmental performance, permitting analysis for decoupling within a business practice. This is made possible by the unique way the method links physical life cycle and the monetary flows of a BM. Usefulness of BM-LCA is discussed relative to BM innovation, business strategy and similar tools. BM-LCA provides insights into a broad range of BM elements and emerges as useful for business strategy. By measuring BM environmental performance, it helps determine what BM to compete with and support critical analysis of business against greenwashing. BM-LCA also enables identification of BM elements in greatest need of environmental innovation. BM-LCA appears as a promising tool for guiding business companies towards sustainability, filling a space between LCA and BMC. The method offers a practical way for business and LCA experts to merge their respective knowledge.

Environmental management systems based on the international standard ISO 14001 have become widespread in companies globally during the last two decades. This chapter aims to contribute knowledge as to which companies are most likely to adopt ISO 14001, environmental frontrunners or poor performers in need of effective approaches. In addition, the chapter aims to assess the impact of ISO 14001 on concrete environmental performance. The context in focus in this study is manufacturing companies in Sweden. The study focuses on changes in performance over a period of 12 years and includes both ISO 14001-certified companies and non-certified companies. The analysis has been carried out using statistical methods for five different environmental areas: air emissions, water emissions, resource use, energy use and waste. In none of these environmental areas have we been able to find any significant differences between certified and non-certified companies regarding performance improvement prior to ISO 14001-certification or the corresponding period in non-certified companies. Certain positive concrete effects as a result of the ISO 14001 adoption have been found but, in general, the standard seems to have limited effect on the improvement of corporate environmental performance. There are many examples in the literature that ISO 14001 has been successful under certain circumstances but at the same time it seems that ISO 14001-certification does not appear to be a guarantee of neither superior environmental performance nor concrete environmental improvements.

Voluntary environmental management systems (EMS) based on the international standard ISO 14001 have become widespread globally in recent years. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of voluntary management systems on energy efficiency in the Swedish manufacturing industry by means of objective industrial energy data derived from mandatory annual environmental reports. The study focuses on changes in energy efficiency over a period of 12 years and includes both ISO 14001-certified companies and non-certified companies. Consideration is given to energy improvement efforts in the companies before the adoption of ISO 14001. The analysis has been carried out using statistical methods for two different industrial energy parameters: electricity and fossil fuel consumption. The results indicate that ISO 14001 adoption and certification has increased energy efficiency regarding the use of fossil fuel. In contrast, no effect of the management systems has been found concerning the use of electricity. The mixed results of this study are only partly in line with the results of previous studies based on perceptions of company representatives