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The Sustainable Business Canvas serves as a foundation for the systematic development of sustainability-oriented business models in the context of an interactive workshop. The present manual provides guidance for conducting such workshops.

The Business Model Canvas was originally developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur and serves to visualize and analyze business models (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2011). Today, it is the probably most widelyused
tool for start-up management and has become the standard for start-up presentations and workshops (Blank & Dorf, 2012).

Sustainablity-oriented development of business models

In the context of the StartUp4Climate initiative, a model was developed on the
basis of the Business Model Canvas that enables sustainability-oriented development of business models: the Sustainable Business Canvas.

In a first step, existing methodological approaches of (general as well as sustainability-
oriented) business model development were examined and explained in a framework paper (Tiemann & Fichter, 2014). The analysis of existing approaches and specific features of sustainability-oriented
business models provided the basis for developing a concept for integrating sustainability in the development of business models (Fichter & Tiemann, 2015).

Interactive workshop

The Sustainable Business Canvas serves as a foundation for the systematic development of sustainability-oriented business models in the context of an interactive workshop. The present manual provides guidance for conducting such workshops.

The workshop concept was tested and optimized at the Businessplan-Wettbewerb Berlin Brandenburg (Business plan competition Berlin Brandenburg) 2014/2015 and in the class on Eco-Venturing taught at the University of Oldenburg in 2014/2015.

Sustainable Business Canvas: available online

Besides the workshop concept, the Sustainable Business Canvas has been implemented as an online tool and is available on the www.start-green.net portal.

Thus, workshop participants have the opportunity to work iteratively both before and after the workshop. The integration of the relevant tools for in-depth analysis in business model development enables participants to go into greater detail.