Environmental Business Model Canvas Part 2

Activity

Use the template below to apply the environmental BMC to your organisation:

Blank Environmental BMC Template.

Breakdown

To support you with this task, here are some prompts for each of the nine segments of the environmental BMC:

• Functional value is the number of products used by a customer in a given timeframe, e.g., one year.
• Materials are bio-physical stocks used to create the functional value.
  • If you are a manufacturer this might be purchasing and transforming large amounts of physical materials.
  • If you are a service organisation this might be building infrastructure, information technology and vehicles.
  • Do not input all the materials your organisation uses onto the canvas, only select your organisation’s key materials and their environmental impact.
• Production refers to the actions that create value.
  • If you are a manufacturer this might be transforming raw or unfinished materials into higher value outputs.
  • If you are a service provider this might involve running an IT infrastructure, transporting people or other logistics, using office spaces, and hosting service points.
  • Focus on activities which are core to your organisation, and which have high environmental impact.
• Supplies and outsourcing represent all the other material and production activities that are necessary but not considered ‘core’ to your organisation.
  • Examples may include water or energy supplied by local utility companies.
• Distribution involves the transportation of goods, i.e., the physical means by which your organisation ensures customers can access your functional value.
• Use phase looks at the impact of the client’s involvement in your organisation’s functional value (product or service).
  • It might include product maintenance and repair, or the client’s material resource and energy requirements, e.g., electronic products might require charging.
• End-of-life is when the client chooses to end the consumption of the functional value (product or service).
  • Consider issues of material reuse such as remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling, disassembly, incineration, or disposal of a product.
  • Explore ways to manage your impact through substance restrictions, recycling, and products as a service business models.
• Environmental impacts are the ecological costs of your organisation’s actions. E.g., CO2e emissions, human health, ecosystem impact, natural resource depletion, water consumption, energy consumption, water use, and other non-CO2e emissions.
• Environmental benefits refer to your organisations ecological value. This might be through environmental impact reductions – i.e., being less damaging to the environment – and/ or generating positive ecological value – actively regenerating the environment.

Exemplar

If you need help, have a look at the environmental BMC that has been completed for Origin Coffee below:

Completed Origin Coffee Environmental BMC

Module 4

To move onto Module 4, mark this module as complete by clicking on the green button below.

Adapted from Joyce, A. and Paquin, R.L., 2016. The triple layered business model canvas: A tool to design more sustainable business models. Journal of cleaner production, 135, pp.1474-1486.