We are happy to share with you our latest Podcast: Sustainable Business Model Design: Patterns to Make Sustainability Work.     Follow this link or listen here on Soundcloud.     Florian Luedeke-Freund, Henning Breuer and Lorenzo Massa introduce some of the basic concepts from their book on Sustainable Business Model Design - 45 Patterns.

We created and delivered a generic process to create and consolidate sustainable business models for new, technology-based service ideas, for instance involving new 5G telecommunication capabilities. The process describes five overarching steps (see figure below) and is complemented by a number of resources and templates that contain further support and instructions.   1. Collect business-related ideas (e.g. on market gap and technology readiness) using an idea profile template 2. Select sustainable business design patterns to enhance the sustainability-orientation of your idea 3. Facilitate collaborative stakeholder workshop (using the MURAL board template of the Business Innovation Kit) 4. Document, analyse and synthesize results and implications drawing from related literature 5. Plan and enter validation and implementation     The process was developed and exemplified for three 5G telecommunication service ideas, namely Multimodal Mobility Services, vCDN (virtual content delivery network) services for railways, and On Demand Private Network for Industry 4.0 capabilities. See the 5GVictori website for (preliminary) results and further news of the project.

For the Africa Europe Innovation Partnership we are conducting a new training session on Sustainable Business Modelling for CleanTech. During the interactive two hours session, participants will learn to apply sustainable business model design patterns to an innovation challenge or a new business idea in the field of cleantech. Using an online collaboration platform, they generate and prioritise ideas, and learn how to advance the business model in a sustainability-oriented manner. Check the AEIP website for a short handbook and results.

At the Africa-Europe Innovation Partnership (AEIP) we hold a webinar on ‘Sustainable Business Modelling for Cleantech’. Participants will learn to apply sustainable business model design patterns to an innovation challenge or a new business idea in the field of cleantech. Using an online collaboration platform they generate and prioritise ideas, how to advance the business model in a sustainability-oriented manner, and sketch and refine new business models.   Prof. Dr. Florian Lüdeke-Freund and Henning will conduct the session to address the following questions: • How to capitalise on the green and social values that motivate and guide green start-ups in delivering sustainable innovations? • How to support and nurture profitable and sustainability-oriented business model innovation in cleantech? • How to improve the sustainability profile of an existing business idea?   The Africa-Europe Innovation Partnership (AEIP) is organizing a virtual event, under the patronage of the South African Ministry for Science, Technology and Innovation, as part of their annual Science Forum. The AEIP is an initiative of the African Union-European Union High Level Policy Dialogue, with funding from the EC, aiming to support and connect innovation and technology incubators, accelerators and technology transfer actors from both continents. It was launched by the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission in September 2019 in Nairobi (Kenya), to strengthen innovation cooperation between Africa and the EU.

At this year’s GRONEN conference we demonstrate how to work with 45 business model design patterns that support ecological, social, and economic value creation. We are inviting you to join our workshop on “Sustainable Business Design with Business Model Patterns” (registration required).