Design principles for sustainability assessments in the sustainable business model innovation process

Assessing business models’ sustainability performance has become necessary to help organizations transition towards sustainability and circular economy. Organizations face multiple challenges in developing sustainable business models during the sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) process. Many of these challenges can be solved by assessing the sustainability performance of the various business model designs. Scholars have employed various approaches to develop sustainability assessment tools and processes that fit different organizational needs in the SBMI process. This paper contributes to this organizational process by analyzing the existing sustainability assessment frameworks for business models and synthesizing the lessons from these into a set of design principles for supporting future assessments of business models. The proposed design principles act as guidelines to help organizations integrate sustainability assessments into their sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) process. For the methodology, the paper utilizes a systematic literature review for selecting the sustainability assessment frameworks present in literature and CIMO-logic from design science for analyzing the selected assessment frameworks. The paper discusses the heterogeneity observed in the various frameworks’ approaches and the wide range of functions the assessment frameworks fulfil within the SBMI process. These insights help understand how best to design sustainability assessments to support the SBMI process. The paper concludes by presenting a research agenda with identified avenues for future research to integrate sustainability assessments in the SBMI process.