Sustainable business models as a pathway to sustainable growth: reconciling economic, ecological and social value creation

Abstract

The rapid expansion of renewable energy exposes a fundamental tension at the core of contemporary sustainability discourse: industries widely regarded as environmentally beneficial often remain embedded in linear, resource-intensive growth models that reproduce many of the ecological and social pressures they are intended to alleviate. This thesis explores if and how sustainable business models (SBMs) can mitigate this sustainability paradox in the German onshore wind sector, which is the most mature onshore wind market in Europe and a show case of growth-driven ecological and social tension. <br>The central research question examines whether SBMs can reconcile economic, ecological, and social value creation across the key stakeholders of the wind energy value chain — original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), project developers, and asset owners — and, if so, under which conditions such integration becomes feasible. The research adopts a pragmatist philosophy and an abductive logic of inquiry. Empirical data are derived from semi-structured interviews with representatives of all three stakeholder groups, complemented by a quantitative stakeholder survey prioritising SBM configurations across economic, ecological, and social value dimensions. The Gioia methodology is applied to structure qualitative insights into first-order concepts, second-order themes, and aggregate theoretical dimensions.<br>The findings demonstrate that adopting sustainability-oriented SBMs does not by itself produce sustainable value through SBMs. Instead, four structural conditions must be simultaneously fulfilled for an SBM to pass the Structural Conditions Gate and generate integrated value: economic primacy, technical and commercial maturity, stakeholder incentive alignment, and value-chain role compatibility. SBMs that satisfy these conditions enter a Sustainable Value Matrix, which positions them along two axes (integrated value creation and stakeholder inclusion) to identify configurations that maximise sustainable value across the three stakeholder groups.<br>Building on these insights, the thesis proposes four dominant configurations in the German onshore wind sector: hybrid energy systems, high-yield operations, regional value creation, and circular products. These configurations most comprehensively integrate economic, ecological, and social value across stakeholders. The analysis further shows that prevailing investment metrics, particularly the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), systematically undervalue ecological and social contributions. To address this limitation, the thesis introduces the Sustainable Value of Energy (SVE) metric as a broader evaluative framework.<br>In addition, the thesis derives actionable insights for each stakeholder group on how to activate and implement the prioritised SBMs in practice. These contributions are summarised in the Sustainable Value Architecture (SVA), a conceptual proposal on a dynamic five-layer framework that links the Structural Conditions Gate, the Sustainable Value Matrix, the four SBM configurations, and the SVE metric through a feedback loop. Reforming the metric is therefore mandatory: without it, the range of SBMs able to generate sustainable value remains narrow.<br>The thesis makes six key contributions. First, it provides the first systematic review of SBMs as implemented in the onshore wind industry. Second, it advances a multi-stakeholder perspective on value creation beyond firm-centric approaches. Third, it develops the Structural Conditions Gate and the Sustainable Value Matrix as instruments governing SBM feasibility and optimisation. Fourth, it proposes an empirically grounded Revised SBM Blueprint, positioning configurations within the Sustainable Value Matrix. Fifth, it positions acceptance as a hard economic design parameter, demonstrating that social acceptance has measurable financial effects and that SBMs can be designed to activate SBM adoption and implementation. Sixth, it presents the sustainable value of energy (SVE) metric as a conceptual alternative to LCOE-dominated investment logic and presents the sustainable value architecture (SVA) as a conceptual proposal of a dynamic framework consolidating the thesis’s analytical contributions.<br>These contributions lead to a practical conclusion: sustainable growth becomes achievable when stakeholders coordinate their business model selection to align economic incentives with ecological constraints and social acceptance across the value chain.