Abstract
Sustainability has become one of the challenges of today’s banks. Since sustainable business models are responsible for the environment and society along with generating economic benefits, they are an attractive approach to sustainability. Sustainable business models also offer banks competitive advantages such as increasing brand reputation and cost reduction. However, no framework is presented to evaluate the sustainability of banking business models. To bridge this theoretical gap, the current study using A Delphi-Analytic Hierarchy Process method, firstly, developed a sustainable business model to evaluate the sustainability of the business model of banks. In the second step, the sustainability performance of sixteen banks from eight European countries including Norway, The UK, Poland, Hungary, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, assessed. The proposed business model components of this study were ranked in terms of their impact on achieving sustainability goals. Consequently, the proposed model components of this study, based on their impact on sustainability, are respectively value proposition, core competencies, financial aspects, business processes, target customers, resources, technology, customer interface, and partner network. The results of the comparison of the banks studied by each country disclosed that the sustainability of the Norwegian and German banks’ business models is higher than in other counties. The studied banks of Hungary and Spain came in second, the banks of The UK, Poland, and France ranked third, and finally, the Italian banks ranked fourth in the sustainability of their business models.
Highlights
Sustainable business models (SBMs) are tools allowing the businesses to meet the environmental, the social, and the economic benefits simultaneously [1]
Leveraging of the business reputation [4,5] brand differentiation [6], cost reduction through the management of energy and water consumption [7] increasing employee satisfaction and retention [8,9], directing the industry toward best practices [10], responding the needs of customers with eco-preferences [11] are the benefits named in the literature of service sectors to apply sustainability principles
Far too little attention has been paid to the importance of the role of the business models in achieving the sustainability goals in the banking sector whilst many researchers consider the business models as tools for implementing the strategies (e.g., [32,33]), designing an SBM provides the opportunities for the banks to execute their sustainability strategies
Summary
Sustainable business models (SBMs) are tools allowing the businesses to meet the environmental, the social, and the economic benefits simultaneously [1]. Capital markets give awards to policies that are socially and environmentally responsible Thence, such demands from the clients and the other stakeholders stimulate the firms to focus more on sustainable services through redefining their business logic and integrating sustainability in their policies [27]. An SBM is a tool that incorporates multi-stakeholder benefits and innovation to create and deliver sustainable values to implement the principles of sustainability and make money simultaneously [34]. It can be interpreted that an SBM constitutes a set of elements and interrelations among them to create and deliver sustainable values for multi-stakeholders
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