Conference Agenda

Sharing business models offer new potential for sustainability by promoting efficient resource use. Research on sharing business models has primarily focused on sustainable value propositions, neglecting the critical aspects of value creation and purchasing and supply decisions. This study explores how supply decisions contribute to creating sustainable sharing business models in the clothing industry. We focus on clothing libraries, a novel model where members borrow curated garments. Drawing on insights from six clothing libraries and ten suppliers, we develop a framework for sustainable supply decisions in sharing business models. This framework considers supply channels and supplier selection based on sustainability criteria, and product and material selection. Our findings also highlight the underutilized potential for collaboration between clothing libraries and suppliers to promote sustainable practices.

The utilization of energy efficient technologies is recognized to be a contributing factor to the reduction of global carbon emissions and ultimately mitigation of climate change. Household energy consumption generates among the largest global carbon is a tool to address the environmental impacts of the increasing energy demands. While there are sufficient recommendations to mitigate climate change via technology adoption, there is a need in literature for empirical evidence on customer perspective on the matter. Therefore, through a conjoint analysis approach, this paper aims to unravel the most important factors that influence customer decision-making in purchasing housing energy concepts, in Northern Europe, namely Nordic countries and British Isle countries. Through the conjoint analysis, seven factors that are likely to influence customer decision-making have been derived from the study, i.e., financing, service bundle, monitoring, price, operating expenses, government subsidies, and impact on CO2 emissions. By looking at respondents’ environmental attitudes, this paper also aims to observe whether behavioral dimensions influence customers to purchase housing energy concepts. Thus, the findings of this paper help refine the complexities involved in customer-decision making as well as guide industry actors and policy makers to understand customer preferences and tailor incentives and strategies that promote the utilization of housing energy efficient concepts.

Sustainability has become an important issue in today's business environment, given the increased pressure to align supply chain practices with ESG objectives. This study examines the extent to which sustainability is included in negotiations between Italian SMEs and their suppliers. The study highlights the need for a more structured and comprehensive approach to include sustainability within negotiations and emphasizes the importance of aligning supplier relationships with sustainability objectives. Using case studies, we examine the negotiation processes and the inclusion of sustainability criteria in eight medium-sized companies from different industries. Our findings show that while sustainability is recognized as an essential part of corporate strategy, its inclusion in negotiations with suppliers remains in its infancy. Sustainability, as it stands, is primarily confined to the pre-negotiation and post-negotiation stages. The analysis delves into factors such as the industry and B Corp certification, which are considered as variables that may impact the degree to which sustainability is integrated into negotiations.