Table 6 Interventions through which businesses can support sustainability transformations
From: Conceptualizing the potential of entrepreneurship to shape urban sustainability transformations
Resource interventions | Transactive interventions | Organizational interventions | Value interventions | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Internal change | Related interventions adjust material and quantifiable elements of existing rates, size or the nature of resource consumption in a business. | Related interventions change interactions, behavior, and knowledge of people connected with the business, including its relationship with suppliers and customers. | Related interventions reshape the organization of the business by redefining decision-making authorities of customers, employees, and owners, and modifying the agency people have in change. | Related interventions change the core purpose and goal of a business (i.e., why a company does business) and the values that inform how a business is operated and what it does. |
Illustration of internal change | • Reduce, recycle, reuse resources • Increase energy efficiency • Change to renewable resources | • New customer reward systems • Employee training • New employee behavior, for example, car-sharing | • Establishing new positions in the company • Providing new resources or decision-making powers to employees • Redefining roles of clients in company decisions | • A company shifts from a for-profit to a not-for-profit business model • A company begins to place social or environmental objectives at the core of the business model |
External change | Related interventions change the size or rate of existing processes or material structures in a city, such as modifying the production, consumption or flows of physical materials in the city | Related interventions changes ‘the way people do things’ and interact in a city, including daily habits and routines, as well as knowledge and relations between actors | Related interventions change who gets to decide on the rules and authority in a city, and alter the legitimacy and accountability of decision-making processes. | Related interventions change what constitutes core ideas and “goals” of a city, such as the identity of a neighborhood, who it serves, or the beliefs about a city |
Illustration of external change | • Reduce city-wide waste • Increasing water quality and natural habitats | • A business changes practices in the construction industry by providing sustainable building solutions • A business changes the food production in a city by disseminating vertical farming practices | • Influences changes to regulatory standards that improve access to livelihood in a community • Introduces a new advisory board that gives businesses leverage over public policy • Involves a firm in decisions about or the management of public resources | • Firms contribute to establishing a neighborhood as a cultural hub of the city • Firms contribute to the image of sustainable neighborhoods |