Designing sustainable business models

Sustainable Business Modelling is an emerging field of research and has started finding cross-linkages in the literature of sustainable economic development. The idea of building sustainability at the core of a business model is fast becoming a necessity instead of a uniqueness. Although the concept of sustainability is still abstract and evolving, however, when sustainability is coupled with business, the desired outcome is the realization of the triple bottom line. This paper is an attempt to validate the theory of Sustainable Business Models through case study analysis. The paper's tone is explanatory and explores the phenomenon of sustainability in business models through the lens of the tourism industry.   Sustainable economic development is both the goal and a challenge for many developing economies. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) also encourage sustainable and equitable growth for the economies.  SDG 9 calls explicitly for building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and fostering innovation (UNDP, 2021). Among the several indicators for SDG 9. The corresponding targets to achieve these goals include developing sustainable, resilient, and inclusive infrastructure and promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialization. Achieving these targets would mean creating employment opportunities, including marginalized populations in the workforce, and ensuring a peaceful co-existence with nature, ecology, and the environment.   Sustainable development is a broad term and links to environmental and socio-economic paradigms. Economic stress, poverty, social justice, climate change, and energy crisis are some of the factors that have led the world to question the meaning of sustainable development and reconsider the underlying policies and mechanisms (Elliott, 2012). The transformation to a more sustainable economic system is becoming increasingly desirable because of growing inequality and deteriorating livelihoods. (MartinGeissdoerfer, 2018). Private companies play an essential role in realizing this transition. However, to meet the evolving criterion for sustainability, innovation needs to be sought at a business model level to push sustainable economic growth.   According to a Brundtland Report published in 1988, the notion of sustainable development bears a strong correlation with sustainable tourism. Although tourism does not feature much in sustainable development literature, sustainable development is consistently featured in tourism literature since the late 1980s. (Lawton D. W.). The report presents a range of indicators for sustainable tourism grouped in the following categories – Environmental, Social, Economic, and Cultural.   The primary consumers and beneficiaries of the sustainable business models are humans. Human beings are gratified by consuming the travel experience, and at the same time, it is another set of humans who benefit economically from this consumption. It does make sense to design business models keeping the human interest in mind. However, tourism consumes natural resources like other industries. Therefore, to keep the sustainability quotient intact, it's imperative to keep human desires balanced while designing sustainable business models.   This paper examined tourism-based business models from the lens of sustainability. We scrutinized the world's tallest statue for the sustainable tourism indicators and the triple bottom line. The 182-meter tall Statue of Unity at Kevadia, Gujarat, was built in memory of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, a prominent freedom fighter and the first Deputy PM of India. The authors traveled to the location, surveyed the site for the sustainable tourism indicators, and attempted to assess the sustainability quotient at the level of business models.   This paper attempts to determine the practicality of achieving the triple bottom line in the business models by reducing the design implementations gaps. We also go a step further to recommend that the idea of sustainable business models is non-linear and needs consistent efforts to keep it alive.   * ‘We acknowledge that this case study 'Designing Sustainable Business Models' was developed as a part of the Workshop on Developing Teaching Cases with focus on Responsible Management and UN Sustainable Development Goals facilitated by Professor Radha R Sharma, Dean, Research, New Delhi Institute of Management, New Delhi during June -July 2021'