Previous literature study on GBM´s and GBMI shows there is not a general accepted, clear and precise definition on a GBM and GBM parameters - neither on GBMI [5, 6, 18]. Although many talks about GBM and GBMI e.g. as related to 100% Co2 neutral business model, circular business models [7], sustainable business models [7] and even just GBM´s [5, 6, 7] the big question is if a business, business models and BMES ever can and will be 100% green on different GBM parameters and stages (life time of BM´s) and levels of GBMI? As sketched in Fig. 3 our observations are that many BMES, Businesses and BM´s will relate to GBMI and try to do GBM reconfiguration – focusing on changing or reconfiguration [9] their operative AS IS BMES, Businesses and BM´s into Greener BMES, Businesses and BM´s.
Fewer businesses design [9] Green Businesses (GB) and GBM´s that are “born green” and less design new green businesses - Startup businesses - that are “born pure green” – and pure green from beginning to end of their business and BM´s life. This would be equal to a startup businesses built with “green gens” in its core business model – the strategic highest level of a business and following all related BM´s in the business. Both to AS IS and TO BE businesses we claim this level of GB and GBM is radical andin some cases disruptive - extremely difficult and complex to fulfil, operate and reach. We observe from our case research that most BMES, Businesses and BM´s experience “the greening” of a business and its “greening” of related BM´s as “a Green Business Model Innovation Journey and Process” - “a Green Business Model Innovation transformation” - from being “black” or “half black” to becoming incrementally more green - but maybe seldom and never completely pure green as sketch in Fig. 4. Our research shows that pure green seems very difficult to become to any BMES, Business and BM – or near to impossible. To achieve this stage would include all related BMES, Businesses, BM´s at all BMI levels and all GBM parameters to be and become green – and thereby green in their BM´s entire value network of BM´s related to any BMES.
We propose that businesses BM can be designed or reconfigured into green on seven different levels – BM component, BM dimensions, BM, BM portfolio, Business, BMES layer and BM/BMES Process level. GBMI can be designed or reconfigured on any of the 7 Green Multi Business Model Innovation (GMBMI) levels and can be measured related to the
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Radicallity of green – defined as degree that the BM’s dimensions are changed into green (incremental or radical)
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Complexity of green – defined as how many dimensions of each BM are changed into green
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Reach of green – defined as the impact of the change of green the BM has to the business, vertical- and horizontal BMES [12] or the world
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Time – define as the degree of green of the BM through its entire life cycle
Related to the measurement of a BM´s green complexity, if all BM dimensions are changed Green including all BM dimensions components, then the BM could be classified as a Radical GBM. This was however not found in any case in our investigation of 106 SME businesses GBMI projects and processes as seen in table 1.
The businesses in our investigation primarily focused on “greening” or innovate green on the Business Models BM competence dimension and on the component Layer at the technology part of the BM Competence dimension as seen in table 1 and later Table 2. The BM competence dimension consist of 4 component groups [8] – 1. Technology (product- and service technology, production technology and processes technology), 2. HR, 3. Organisational Systems and 4. Culture. The last 3 competence component group were hardly touched upon according to our research. In general it was further a very small component part of the BM competence dimension technology group that businesses changed and wanted to change when doing GBMI as indicated in Fig. 5.
As can be seen it is primarily product technology – energy, water, material – that is changed. This we marked with the grey arrow in the figure. However the businesses also tried to change BM value proposition dimension product component group as they tried to innovate and hereby reduce waste and pollution – Co2. This we marked with the pink arrow in Fig. 5.
We found that there is a clear overweight to focus on innovating, investing and implementing green on the BM competence component technology – mainly reducing use of energy, water, material, consumption and changing energy type to more green energy and/or greener material/resource types. Changing into more green production technologies was also seen in the business cases – e.g. as investment in solar energy systems for renewable energy production to supply the business with more green energy. Further in some businesses cases investment in convex energy production system was seen to reuse heat from building to supply heat to the business. Waste reduction and pollution especially reduction of Co2 emmision was further seen as focus areas for GBMI. There was also focus on recycling waste either internal the business as valuing other business models or by valuing network or customers business models. These last mentioned Green Business Model Parameters (GBMP) [10, 14] have shown to have good impact on reducing pollution Co2, however the full calculation of resources used to recycle were not seen calculated in the cases of the research. In some cases the impact on Co2 focusing on “greening” material, resources, waste and pollution reduction showed to have much higher impact on Co2 than reducing energy consumption and changing from black to green energy. However, measurement of Energy consumption as sketch in Fig. 6 was observed in our investigation as easier and less critical to the business to innovate green and implement in the businesses than innovating on other GBM Parameters.
However, very few of the businesses investigated as shown above in Figs. 5 and 6 had really an overview of the Competence BM dimensions energy consumption related to different departments serving or engaging in operation of different BM´s. Further the energy consumption was not split out to the different BM´s and different devices – production technologies - internal the business so it would be possible to see energy consumption pr. BM´s and per devices. Hereby it was not possible in most cases to see and analyse the efficiency, Return of Investment (ROI) and progress of the investment in green production technology and relate these to different BM´s. Technical there is not much challenge to measure this as advanced software technologies are available and offered by many technology providers. If implemented it could very much help businesses measure Energy consumption in even close to real time [22, 23, 24]. We found examples on energy consumption measured tools and software that could measure on daily, hourly and second basis as seen in Fig. 7.
It was observed that most accountant systems at the businesses were not prepared for splitting out these Green Parameter measurements on different BM´s. Measuring the green parameters - black and green energy, water, material and resources consumption, waste and pollution and relating them to different BM´s and economic terms is illustrated and sketched in Fig. 8 as an example.
Concerning the supply of black and green energy to a business there is still very much confusion, doubt and actual also a paradox existing. All though energy businesses sell and guaranty supply of green energy to businesses today, reality is that e.g. green electricity and green gas - supplied and sold as Green Energy to a business - often is and can be a mix of “black and green electricity” or “black and green gas”. Even businesses gets subsidies for buying green energy although it is in reality a mix of green and black energy as no technology and energy business yet are able to split black and green energy, measure and guaranty pure e.g. green electricity or gas. Only when offered in separate energy systems it can of course be done but these systems are few and expensive to establish and gives other challenges related to the societies and businesses energy system. It is in reality therefore impossible to businesses today to verify and claim that they are pure green on this green parameter and GBM dimension. The national energy system in Denmark and more countries estimate and in some cases verify that pure green electricity and green gas were supplied to the system and region around the specific business – but there is in reality no actual proof of this estimate and claim. It is still an estimate and not based on measurement on actual supply.
Further there is another paradox in this range and that is e.g. that most existing energy systems today can not adapt and store surplus of renewable energy e.g. electricity from windmills on a stormy day [30]. This means that windmills in Denmark in average were “taken out of the wind” – stopped and taken out of production estimated 50 days in 2020. It still resulted in Danish wind energy production businesses pay German and Norwegian businesses money to get rid of overproduction of green energy. But it can also work opposite as e.g. in 2018 German Windmill businesses payed Danish Windmill owners 190 mill DKK to stop the Danish Wind Energy production, because the German Businesses would receive a fine from German State if they stopped their windmill production in Germany. In other words a GBM with a negative earning dependent on which GREEN BMES the businesses are related to.
The green energy BMES is well known as being volatile and the GBM´s around green energy is known as being very difficult to manage both for energy businesses and society. Several businesses are therefore working on this GBMI challenge [28] to find better storage system e.g. Power2X systems [31, 32, 33] able to use surplus of windenergy to power energy heavy production of storable energy. Innovation of new battery systems [xx], new and better energy forecast systems [34, 35] are also invested in. Several businesses profit enormous on capitalising on these fluctuations, volatility and different regulations in BMES in the production and supply of green energy. Advanced wireless technology is and can play in future a mayor role in this GBMI and development of Green Energy BMES.
From our investigation we also found that most GBMI investments and projects are today taking place on BM reconfiguration level as seen in Table 1 and 2 – equal to that most GBMI investment are done on existing AS IS BM´s. This will be a major focus in future GBM design, because new BM will be pushed to be born green so that “repair” of AS IS BM will be diminished dramatically in the future. EU are already beginning to introduce restrictions on finance businesses possibility to borrow money to businesses investments in e.g. BMI as these have to be proved being green [36, 37].
In this process the measurement of the GBM parameters becomes more and more important to secure high quality estimation and verification of the effects and progress of greening of different GBMI projects. However, we found that these measurement tools are still lacking and not implemented in most businesses although they are should be easy to implement.
The majority of the businesses we studied were still limiting their GBMI to greening at a single business model innovation reconfiguration level as seen in Table 2 – but still not in particular designing GBM´s. This indicates that businesses are uncertain of GBMI investments and they have not yet fully adapted the GBM approach and GBMI into the entire and higher levels of the business – and the new BMI area. In other words GBMI seems still in the very early days - strategically not yet to have been embedded in to critical and larger parts/levels of the businesses.
As can be seen in both Table 1 and 2 there is much more potential for greening the businesses BM´s, when focusing not just on the business BM´s competence dimensions – and as we found in our investigation technical part and to some extend value proposition part of GBM. None of the businesses included in our research could therefore be near to classified as 100% green or pure green to the business.
Measuring incremental, radical and disruptive Green Business Models
The degree of green of the GBM can however become even “ more green” or what we classify as radical and disruptive green. When GBM are related to the degree of “external impact” of greening – the GBM’s impact on vertical, horizontal and/or on any BMES can transform GBM´s into radical and disruptive GBM´s. This can however not be realized without the GBM interacting with other BM´s – the Green Multi Business Model approach. If BM relations are established to other BM’s outside the BM it will enable green value propositions to flow out of the BM into other BM´s and enable receiving and consuming of GBM Value Propositions from other BM’s and hereby make the BM greener and enable other BM´s to become green. Radicality and complexity however today in many businesses and GBM projects take the view- point from the business side – inside out perspective [11]. However if all BM dimensions are changed green then the BM is totally changed green – meaning it could be classified as being in the disruptive green zone – close to pure green. Dependent on its impact on vertical, horizontal and any BMES – it could be classified as disruptive green. The green impact on the reach axis in Fig. 7 – green to whom - becomes hereby related to defining and measuring how green the BM is and the degree of impact that the green BM and GMBMI in the business has – seen “from outside – in” and “outside – out” viewpoint and hereby the impact of green of GBM’s on other BM´s. It is measuring the change in existing BM’s – “AS IS BM” and also “TO BE BM” – related to the green to the business, green to vertical BMES, green to horizontal BMES and green to any BMES – green to the world.
This transformation and measurement of green will however require very large investments to transform, operate, measure and validate the degree of green. 6G, block chain and beyond technologies might be able to support this measurement but businesses and society have always the final strategic say on How Green they want their GBM to be.
GBMI seems therefore to be a long journey to businesses and society - with certainly a beginning but probably a long end - if ever. There will always be components, dimensions, business models, business model portfolios, businesses, business model ecosystems and business model processes that can be innovated green or more green [10]. Society and Businesses will always learn new technics and approaches to become greener and measure GBM´s. GBMI is therefore strongly linked to continuous improvement, continuous innovation and not least learning. Learning will always be the raw material for any Green Multi Business Model Innovation (GMBMI). Learning to become greener and building green competences into technology, HR, organisational systems and culture of the BM´s and businesses to be able to innovate BM´s to become greener - we expect - will take businesses and society several years - through several iterations, “learning loops” including many “fails and bugs”. However theoretical it should be possible to measure GBM and GMBMI on a scale on all BM Dimensions and MBMI levels – not just the BM Competence and Value Proposition dimensions.