Playing games to facilitate Sustainable Product and Business Innovation

The Sustainability Impact Canvas (SIC) and the Sustainable Business Model Canvas (SBMC) are two fundamental tools for sustainable product and business model innovation, and can be incorporated in corporate design processes to generate triple-bottom-line benefits and drive innovation. To ease the adaptation of these tools and make them even more effective, we have developed the Sustainable Business Model Innovation Game.

The game is based around currently 30 business model cue cards. Each cue card shows a summary of a sustainable business model that has already been successfully applied in practice. Users can easily identify typical positive and negative impacts of the respective business model and learn about the model through a real world example.

Cue cards for the Sustainable Business Model Canvas

Each cue card contains a list of segments of the SBMC which it can apply to. The relevant segments are constrained to the central layer of the SBMC.

The Sustainable Business Model Canvas

The Sustainable Business Model Innovation Game is best suited for teams of 2-10 people. The group should then be divided into 3 teams, and each team receives an equal share of the sustainable business model cue cards.

Going through each cue card, the teams discuss the possibility of the respective business model for the product or business in question, and then jointly decide whether aspects of the model can be successfully applied.

Positive and negative benefits of the business model are included in the respective sections of the SBMC or the SIC, and the final result can then be challenged by the whole group.

The Sustainable Business Innovation Game, the required 38 business model cue card as well as a detailed tutorial for its use can be downloaded here.

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