Critical Factors Influencing Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Buildings

Xiaopeng Deng,Xiaojing Zhao,Tengyuan Chang,Bon-Gang Hwang

doi:10.3390/su10010033

Xiaopeng Deng, Xiaojing Zhao + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su10010033

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Abstract

Despite significant policy drives, the wide adoption of sustainable building (SB) is hindered by factors such as high upfront cost and long payback period. Business model (BM) innovation is therefore highly demanded to help SB professionals to cope with the challenges and convert the value of SB into profit. Nevertheless, few studies examined BM innovation in the building sector and factors influencing BM innovation for SB are unclear. This paper aims to identify the critical factors that propel companies to innovate BM for SB. First, a literature review and expert interviews were conducted to identify and filter the drivers for BM innovation within the SB context. Second, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data on the significance of the selected influencing factors from 132 SB professionals. Finally, a model based on fuzzy set theory was used to ascertain the critical factors influencing BM innovation for SB. Twenty-four critical influencing factors in six categories from the external environment and internal organization were finalized, namely, market and economic, policy and legislation, technology and industry structure, social-culture, entrepreneurship, and organizational learning. The findings illuminate the motivations when developing BM for sustainability and provide strategies on BM innovation for practitioners and policy makers.

Highlights

During the past few decades, there has been an upsurge of interest in sustainable technologies and sustainable development [1]
This paper aims to formulate a list of the key influencing factor of the Business model (BM) innovation for Sustainable building (SB) projects
This study aims to identify critical factors influencing BM innovation for SB

Summary

Introduction

During the past few decades, there has been an upsurge of interest in sustainable technologies and sustainable development [1]. It is well recognized that the construction industry is associated with a range of potentially detrimental effects, including the depletion of materials and resources, the effect on ecosystem, and the impact on greenhouse gas emissions [2,3]. According to International Energy Agency, the building sector is the largest final energy consumption sector, consumes around 35 percent of total final energy and represents approximately one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions [4]. With business-as-usual scenario, energy use in the building sector is expected to rise by 50 percent by 2050 due to an expected population increase of 2.5 billion and growth in energy-using devices [5]. Sustainable building (SB) is one of the measures to mitigate these negative effects associated with buildings across their life cycle. There have been extensive studies on various aspects of SB in different contexts, including technical feasibility (e.g., [6,7]), policy incentives and regulations (e.g., [8,9]), social awareness (e.g., [10,11,12]), and performance assessment (e.g., [13,14,15])

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