A problem formulation of sustainable business design from the viewpoint of general design theory

Abstract

Sustainable business design is characterized by its facets to balance triple bottom lines (i.e., profit, planet and people). Thus, it is crucial to consider interaction between the core business and external environment, which does not seem to directly influence the profit of the core business, for the success of sustainable businesses. In order to support design and implementation of sustainable businesses, analysis of and knowledge acquisition from successful business cases are indispensable. Although the rules and guidelines obtained from such analysis is quite useful for idea generation of sustainable businesses, a lack of clear and explicit formulation of design problem hinders effective and efficient utilization of this knowledge. To solve this problem, this study tries to formulate a sustainable business design focusing on (i) the necessary design knowledge and (ii) design space referring to a framework provided by General Design Theory.