Nancy M.P. Bocken, Samuel W. Short
5 min
While interest in sustainable business models (SBMs) has grown significantly, progress toward global sustainability goals remains insufficient. The authors argue that this is because many industries are built on deeply embedded, institutionalized unsustainable business models (UBMs). This paper seeks to identify these dominant UBM types across key sectors and map them against potential SBM responses to help policymakers and industry leaders understand what must be fundamentally transformed.
The authors analyze several major sectors—including energy, transportation, construction, food, clothing, technology, advertising, and finance—to identify recurring patterns of harm. They synthesize these into nine UBM archetypes, categorized by their focus on operations, consumption, or governance:
The paper emphasizes that current sustainability efforts, such as recycling or net-zero targets, are often too narrow. To achieve real transformation, the authors propose a hierarchy of SBM responses. They argue that firms must move beyond simple efficiency and circularity toward more robust models of stewardship, inclusive value creation, and ultimately, regenerative business models that actively seek to restore environmental and social health.
This research provides a diagnostic tool for identifying the root causes of industrial unsustainability. By categorizing UBMs, the authors offer a framework for moving beyond "niche" sustainability initiatives toward systemic change. The findings suggest that without addressing these institutionalized models—often supported by current financial and advertising systems—technological fixes will remain inadequate to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Alex: And that's where the paper's hierarchy of responses comes in? [[RP_SECTION:regenerative-model-hierarchy|Regenerative Model Hierarchy]]
Sam: Yes. The authors sketch a progression from basic efficiency gains—doing less harm—through circular approaches, up to what they call regenerative models. The distinction there is important: regenerative doesn't just mean minimizing damage. It means actively restoring the social and environmental systems the business has historically degraded. That's a fundamentally different value proposition, not an upgraded version of the existing one.
Alex: Though I'd push back slightly—how much of that is conceptual aspiration versus something a firm can actually operationalize? [[RP_SECTION:limitations-and-future-research|Limitations and Future Research]]
Sam: That's the paper's central limitation, and the authors are reasonably candid about it. This is a conceptual synthesis, not an empirical study. There's no validation of the taxonomy against firm-level data, no transition index, no way to score how deeply institutionalized a given UBM is within a specific organization. What it gives you is a diagnostic vocabulary—which is genuinely useful for framing research questions and policy conversations, but it stops well short of a measurement tool.
Alex: So the obvious next step is turning the taxonomy into something auditable. An institutionalized harm score that investors or regulators could actually use to hold firms accountable.
Sam: Precisely. And that's where the paper's contribution is probably best understood—not as a solution, but as a reframing. The argument is that the discourse has been too focused on reporting and incremental optimization, and not enough on whether the underlying model is structurally compatible with sustainability at all. If that reframing takes hold in how researchers and policymakers ask the question, the empirical work can follow. The framework gives you somewhere to aim.
Alex: It's a meaningful shift in the unit of analysis—from firm behavior to firm architecture.
Sam: That's a good way to put it. And it has real implications for where intervention pressure should land. If the model itself is the problem, then the levers aren't just regulatory compliance or consumer pressure—they're the financial structures, ownership incentives, and institutional norms that make unsustainable models the default profitable choice. That's a harder target, but arguably the right one.
Alex: Thanks for walking through this. It's a paper that rewards careful reading precisely because the taxonomy looks simple on the surface, but the structural argument underneath it is doing a lot of work.
Sam: Thanks for listening to ResearchPod.