ECSI Business Model Analysis & Typology (D6.6)

How can the business models of Edible City Solution Initiatives (ECSI) be understood to support their continuity and upscaling?

This is the guiding question the present Deliverable (D6.6) seeks to answer through the analysis and typology of ECSI business models, including the derivation of strategies for continuity and growth per type.

D6.6 is informed by previous work done in D6.5 on the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC). It is part of the action plan of the EdiCitNet Business Consulting Team (D6.4). It connects questions of ECSI scaling and growth raised in D3.3 (forthcoming) with a new analytical tool for ECSI business model analysis.

We found that commercial value creation and capture does not play a major role for many ECSI within EdiCitNet, and that the TLBMC (cf. D6.5) does not offer a useful tool for ECSI business model analysis precisely because it implies commercialisation as primary way of value creation and capture.

Yet, like any type of organisation, all ECSI follow a basic mechanism of value creation and capture. The present Deliverable builds on that basic mechanism and develops the Organisational Value System (OVS) to be able to analyse the variety of value creation and capture mechanisms that ECSI follow – including, but not restricted to, commercialisation (cf. D6.3 and D6.4).

OVS-based analyses and a typology of various ECSI are presented, including strategies for continuity and growth per type. Three archetypes are distinguished:

• Commercial Type

• Social Type

• Nature-Based Type

Further, four mixed types are distinguished:

• Commercial-Social Type

• Social-Nature-based Type

• Nature-based-Commercial Type

• Social-Commercial-Nature-based Type.

For each type, a business model analysis with a case example and strategies for continuity and growth are presented. The proposed typology, strategies for continuity and growth, and the potential applications of the OVS are discussed. The report concludes with ten lessons learnt from the interplay of science and practice that brought the OVS into being.