Collaborative business models for a sustainability transition: insights from two cases in Europe

Collaborative actions have been identified as key for the sustainability transition, hence a need for understanding inclusive, robust and dynamic Collaborative Business Models (CBMs). The objective of this study has been to get insights into different CBMs involved in the sustainability transition in the blue economy and in food systems. Our core question is ‘what are joint, sustainability visions, inclusive types of governance structures, and value co-creation processes that contribute to this transition and how?'. Semi-structured interviews have been carried out for two cases, one in Finland and one in France. First, results reveal the importance of a commonly-defined sustainability vision to increase the actors' feeling of ‘belonging to' the CBM. Secondly, governance models should take into account multiple stakeholders' interests, formal processes within a well-defined framework and be flexible to allow informal exchanging in a dynamic environment. Third, co-creation processes should be designed such that all involved partners benefit (e.g. creation of knowledge), but indirectly also a snowball effect is generated that enriches others. The main insights from this study further suggest a key role for an intermediary organisation that guides all actors in the CBM to contribute to the sustainability transition of blue economy and food systems.