Unveiling the Digital and Sustainability Convergence: Leveraging
Blockchain for Grand Challenges Oriented Business Model
Innovation
Davide Moiana, Jacopo Manotti, Antonio Ghezzi and Andrea Rangone
Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering,
Via Lambruschini 4B, 20156 Milan, Italy
Keywords: Business Model Innovation, Grand Challenges, Emerging Technology, Blockchain, Tokens, DAO.
Abstract: Social and ecological challenges are increasingly threatening the world, asking for concrete actions from all
the actors and sectors of our society. Broad social and environmental problems have been collected below the
definition of “Grand Challenges” (GCs), to represent their wicked nature and tough resolution. In order to
advance these goals, the United Nations in 2015 ratified the so-called 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, which includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This new imperative implies firms
to shift towards new sustainable practices and innovate their business models. Management research has
identified in emerging technology one of the most powerful means for Business Model Innovation (BMI). In
this regard, blockchain is claimed to have the ability to drastically restructure firms' business structures and
markets. By way of an inductive multiple-case study analyzing 4 start-ups in the Voluntary Carbon Market
(VCM) field, this research proposes a conceptual model summarizing three actionable characteristics (Asset
enabler, Trust machine, Collaborative and coordinated action enhancer) through which blockchain
technologies can drive BMI, making it clear on how they enable to embed GCs in the business model
components.
1 INTRODUCTION
The critical social and environmental issues world is
facing nowadays have been called "Grand
challenges" (GCs), which are wicked issues with
complex, no clear and unequivocal solution (Ferraro,
Etzion, & Gehman, 2015; George, Howard-
Grenville, Joshi, & Tihanyi, 2016). The United
Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
outlines 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
aimed at achieving social, environmental, and
economic objectives. To address these goals,
governments, businesses, and individuals must work
collaboratively (Grodal & O'Mahony, 2017; Howard-
Grenville & Spengler, 2022). Firms must also adapt
to the evolving definition of their role in society,
shifting towards generating shared value for all
stakeholders. This requires transitioning towards
sustainable practices, facilitated by technological
solutions (Foss & Saebi, 2017; George et al., 2016),
including blockchain, which we examine in this
research. Through an inductive multiple case study in
the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), we identify
blockchain's potential as an asset enabler, trust
machine, and enhancer of coordinated and
collaborative action, proposing a theory of strategic
business model design for Grand Challenges. Our
research contributes to the convergence of the digital
and sustainable imperative and advances the
understanding of technology's impact on business
models.
2 THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
George and colleagues (2016), describes GCs as
“formulations of global problems that can be
plausibly addressed through coordinated and
collaborative effort” (George et al., 2016; Howard-
Grenville et al., 2019). Namely, GCs call for a
coordinated and consistent effort from a wide range
of stakeholders from different levels of organizations
and society, for alterations in the way economic
136
Moiana, D., Manotti, J., Ghezzi, A. and Rangone, A.
Unveiling the Digital and Sustainability Convergence: Leveraging Blockchain for Grand Challenges Oriented Business Model Innovation.
DOI: 10.5220/0012093800003552
In Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Smart Business Technologies (ICSBT 2023), pages 136-143
ISBN: 978-989-758-667-5; ISSN: 2184-772X
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

activities are planned and carried out and for
advancements in tools and technology (George et al.,
2016; Griggs et al., 2013; Muzio & Doh, 2021). For
profit businesses, alone or in conjunction with
governmental and non-profit organizations, are
relevant actors in this regard, as they represent a
“locus of innovation” and they can play a central role
in fostering social impact collaboration (Bode,
Rogan, & Singh, 2019; Wang, Tong, Takeuchi, &
George, 2016).
Business model innovation (BMI) is increasingly
recognized as a key driver to deliver greater social
and environmental sustainability in the industrial
system, as it entails holistic changes to how business
is conducted on multilevel and multistakeholder
dimension (Bocken et al., 2014; Klein, Spieth, &
Heidenreich, 2021). Zott and Amit (2010) define the
business model as an architecture of value that can be
described as a network of activities, activities and
transactions that involve internal and external
stakeholder that can be described in terms of content,
structure and governance. An activity system is also
characterized by different dominant logics to achieve
value creation: Novelty, efficiency,
complementarities and lock-in (Zott & Amit, 2010).
Sustainable business model innovation is defined
as the incorporation of heterogeneous logic within
business, considering the so-called economic,
environmental and social “triple bottom line”
(Bocken et al., 2014; Stubbs, 2017). According to
Cohen & Winn (2007), sustainable business models
should aim to tackle market inefficiencies such as
imperfect competition, negative externalities, and
information asymmetry. However, implementing
sustainable business models can be challenging due
to six managerial problems that pose significant
obstacles to achieving sustainable change, identified
by George and colleagues (2021): knowing,
valuating, communicating, coordination and trust,
access and reach and institution.
Emerging technologies have the potential to
enable sustainable-oriented business model
innovation (BMI) (Foss and Saebi, 2017; Teece
2018). Emerging technology–enabled BMI can have
a profound impact on stakeholders in the ecosystem,
including customers, suppliers, and strategic partners,
creating new needs and leading to novel resource
configurations (Amit & Han, 2017; George et al.,
2021).
Blockchain, an electronic ledger system that
enables secure and transparent transactions without
the need for intermediaries, has emerged as a
particularly interesting technology to study due to its
potential for disrupting various industries. It fulfills
the five parameters identified by Rotolo, Hicks, and
Martin (2015) to define an emerging technology:
radical novelty, fast growth, coherence, prominent
impact, uncertainty, and ambiguity. However, these
properties are not fundamental actionable
characteristics, but rather factors that explain the
diffusion and impact of a technology, allowing it to
be classified as "emergent” and advancing the
consolidated work on technology diffusion (Tushman
& Anderson, 1986; Utterback & Abernathy, 1975).
Recognizing the emergent nature of blockchain
and the possible consequent implications in terms of
BMI and GCs, the research questions investigated in
this study is “How blockchain enables the design of
Grand Challenge-oriented business models?".
3 METHODOLOGY
The unit of analysis aim of this research are the
technological features of blockchain that enable new
sources innovation in the business model design
elements proposed by Zott & Amit (2010) in their
activity-system view, and how they tackle the
managerial problems formulated by George and
colleagues (2021).
Blockchain impact on sustainable business
models is a research field still unexplored, from
which new theory can emerge (Bansal & Corley,
2011; Eisenhardt, 1989). As a result, it is
advantageous to proceed with qualitative research
(Gartner & Birley, 2002). More specifically, it was
chosen to conduct an inductive multiple case study
(Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1984). This approach is
preferred over a single case study due to its robustness
and ability to enable comparisons between different
manifestations of the phenomenon, thereby
increasing the generalizability of results (Eisenhardt
& Graebner, 2007; Meredith, 1998).
3.1 Empirical Setting
Climate change is one of the most critical challenges
facing humanity, as it is widely considered a
significant threat (Pörtner & Roberts, 2022). The
primary issue with climate change is the rising
concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
which causes global warming. However, in most
industries, there is no penalty for causing air
pollution.
Carbon markets can be an effective tool for
addressing the negative externalities associated with
greenhouse gas emissions. Voluntary Carbon
Markets (VCM) are non-regulated markets where
Unveiling the Digital and Sustainability Convergence: Leveraging Blockchain for Grand Challenges Oriented Business Model Innovation
137

organizations participate based on self-imposed
emissions reduction goals. Actors can offset their
impact by purchasing carbon credits generated
through the development of mitigation projects that
follow international methodologies, verified and
certified by external accreditation entities such as
Verra and Gold Standard (Ieta, 2021).
Voluntary carbon market should increase by a
factor of or more by 2030 and by a factor of up to 100
by 2050. However, the market faces several
challenges that impede it to scale up, including
measurement technical issues, heterogeneity and
illiquidity of carbon credits, greenwashing concerns,
opaqueness and fragmentation, entry barriers and lack
of regulation (McKinsey, 2021).
The use of blockchain technology is becoming
increasingly popular among practitioners who are
determined to combat climate change and promote
decarbonization of the global economy. This growing
interest is apparent in the astonishing number of new
companies that are emerging, offering innovative
solutions that leverage blockchain for carbon markets
(Morgan Stanley, 2022; Southpole, 2022).
3.2 Case Sampling
To ensure appropriate theoretical reasoning and high-
quality case study research, a theoretical sampling
approach was utilized to select cases for this multiple
case study with potential to offer theoretical insights
(Goffin, Ahlstrom, Bianchi & Richtner; 2019;
Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007).
Pitchbook, a subscription-based website covering
private capital markets such as venture capital and
private equity, was the primary source for identifying
blockchain-based startups for case selection. Searches
were conducted using keywords such as "Blockchain"
AND "Sustainability" or "Blockchain" AND
"Environmental services." Once a sufficiently large
initial sample was gathered, the cases were filtered to
select the most notable examples for examination,
ensuring the heterogeneity logic and alignment with
the thesis's goal. As a result, the final sample consisted
of four blockchain-based startups: Company A,
Company B, Company C, and Company D.
3.3 Data Collection and Analysis
The research employed a data triangulation approach
to ensure robust results for the qualitative research.
Multiple sources of information were used, including
primary and secondary sources, such as semi-
structured interviews with founders and C-levels, as
well as information from the companies' websites,
whitepapers, and third-party articles. (Yin, 1984;
Bonoma, 1985).
The researchers conducted eight semi-structured
interviews over two distinct waves, with each session
lasting between 31 and 76 minutes. The informant for
each company remained the same during both rounds.
For both the rounds, all sessions lasted between 31
and 76 minutes. A total of 380 minutes of material
was recorded, and the results were transcribed into
107 pages. To improve the overall rigor of the case
study, as recommended by Eisenhardt (1989) and Yin
(1984), the final outcome of primary data was
triangulated with secondary sources.
The study's research question was used to create a
consistent protocol for the pilot interview. The first
set of questions focused on understanding the
business models in terms of design elements and
themes (Zott & Amit, 2010)., while the second set of
questions investigated the sustainability contribution
through the lenses of GCs managerial problems
(George et al, 2021), with a particular emphasis on
the contribution of technology for the resolution of
those problems. The second round of interviews
allowed for a deeper investigation of specific
blockchain applications and topics that were
overlooked in the first phase (Yin, 1984).
After the data collection phase, the data analysis
was carried out. The recordings were transcribed, and
a within-case study data analysis was performed in
accordance with Eisenhardt (1989). Ground theory
methodology (B. Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss &
Corbin, 1998) was adopted to study each case
according to an open coding practice, allowing to
investigate complex phenomena using labels, thus
generating theory from interviews. The collected data
allowed the generation of in-vivo codes dataset and
the analysis following constant comparative method
(Gioia et al., 2013). Subsequently, a comparison of
codes from the different cases was carried out to
obtain the formulation of first-order concepts. The
second-order codes were then aggregated into two
major overarching dimensions: (1) Business model
design themes routed in Zott & Amit (2010) seminal
work; (2) Grand Challenges managerial problems,
based on George and colleagues (2021) work.
In the cross-case analysis, similarities and
differences at different abstraction levels were looked
at to compare the differences between the four cases,
allowing for novel findings (Eisenhardt, 1989). The
correlation between Grand Challenges managerial
problems and design themes was investigated, and the
final result was graphically represented using coding
trees (Gioia et al., 2013).
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4 RESULTS
The cross-case analysis, carried out triangulating
primary data coming from interviews with secondary
data, has been the foundation for the conceptual
framework described in figure 1.
Overarching Dimension 1: GCs Managerial
Problems.
The GCs managerial problems described by George
and colleagues (George-et-al, 2021), are routed in the
business model design elements identified by Zott &
Amit (2010). Namely, the first two problem -
problem of knowing and problem of valuating – are
associated to design content, being the knowledge
and the valuation of natural and social capital,
fundamental to act within sustainability domain. The
third and fourth problem – problem of
communicating and problem of coordination and trust
– are tied to design structure, as they entail the
reshaping of links between actors in the market and
changes in the way they communicate. Finally, the
last two problems – problem of access and reach and
problem of institutions – concern design governance,
as they deal with actors’ access and the institutions’
role in the activity system.
Our cases reveal that blockchain seems not to
cover a role in addressing the technical difficulties in
obtaining an accurate and reliable measurement of a
project's impact (problem of knowing). Being
blockchain a distributed ledger, it has significant
implications for how data is managed and shared
among actors, but not for how data is obtained (for
which other technologies can be leveraged, i.e.,
oracles such as sensors or satellites).
According to the findings, blockchain can
successfully contribute by addressing the
heterogeneity and illiquidity issues of carbon markets
(problem of valuating) – while allowing to tokenize
and fractionalize carbon credits. As described by
Company C CIO: “The liquidity has to do with
creating baskets of tokens on chain where we take a
certain quality of token. There will be a third party
that will just determine which tokens would be
allowed into the basket; in that way, you can have
literally millions of carbon credits in the basket and a
single tradable token can be traded on centralized or
decentralized exchanges." Carbon credit baskets
aggregate credits from comparable carbon offsetting
initiatives, boosting the homogeneity of the supply of
carbon credits. Increased liquidity results in correct
price discovery for each credit class: “The current
illiquid system can work for a company buying a
bunch of credits. But, if you want to have traders in
the market and people who are longing carbon
credits, you need to have much larger liquidity”
(CIO, Company C).
Concerning problem of communicating,
blockchain represent a reliable mean to tackle
greenwashing. In the distributed ledger, all
information about each carbon credit is shared and
accessible: “when somebody buys one of our carbon
credits, they are not only buying a net 0 carbon
reduction. They're also buying ESG reporting data”
(CEO, CAS).
All the startups evaluated addressed the VCM's
opaqueness and fragmentation issues (problem of
coordination and trust). Within a blockchain
distributed ledger system, retiring a credit involves
the burning of the underlying smart contract. This
eliminates the possibility of double-counting, which
can occur when a credit is sold and then resold
through a broker or trader. Moreover, the peer-to-peer
nature of blockchain technology can promote higher
degrees of disintermediation within the activity-
system, where brokers, traders, and merchants no
longer play a vital role in the market. As described by
Company A CEO: “we're basically disrupting the
brokers, traders and exchanges; we're shortening the
value chain”. Furthermore, blockchain's
decentralization features enable the proposal of a new
methodology for carbon offset verification through a
DAO, where token holders can vote on its
implementation, creating a decentralized governance
mechanism.
As a result, blockchain can help by providing the
tools for removing entry barriers (problem of access
and reach). Blockchain-based startups are leveraging
the technology's benefits to reduce transaction costs
and improve financing opportunities for carbon credit
projects. These startups are combining blockchain
with other measuring technologies, such as sensors
and satellites, to develop new digital measurement,
reporting, and verification methodologies. This
approach significantly reduces verification costs for
project developers, making it more efficient and less
time-consuming than traditional manual methods
used by standard organizations such as Verra and
Gold Standard. As described by Company C CEO:
“The process of sequestering carbon is still going to
be at the same speed. It works at the speed of biology.
But hopefully the process to validate and verify and
collect data will be perhaps quicker and more
inexpensive than in other projects”.
Finally, blockchain may fill the institutional
failures (problem of institutions) of traditional
voluntary carbon markets; Blockchain can serve as a
global distributed platform infrastructure for
Unveiling the Digital and Sustainability Convergence: Leveraging Blockchain for Grand Challenges Oriented Business Model Innovation
139

transacting carbon credits, without heavy reliance on
trust intermediaries. As highlighted by Company A
CEO: "[stakeholders] They don't have to trust a close
service report [standards’ organizations services];
you can trust a much more distributed and
decentralized validation of the proof of your carbon
purchase or offsetting”.
Overarching Dimension 2: Design Themes.
The cross-case analysis suggests that blockchain's
novelty is primarily through tokens. Governance
tokens enable new forms of decentralized governance
(i.e., Decentralized Autonomous Organizations),
while utility tokens represent on-chain carbon credit
revival. Regarding these digital artifacts, Company D
whitepaper affirms: “Tokens have multiple
advantages over legacy offsets, including full
transparency, programmability and
fractionalization”.
The tokenization of carbon credits allows for
more efficient and transparent transactions, as the use
of smart contracts on a decentralized ledger
eliminates the need for intermediaries and automates
trustless transactions. This leads to a decrease in
transaction costs and information asymmetry,
improving the overall efficiency of carbon markets.
Additionally, the use of tokens as a representation of
carbon credits allows for fractionalization and
increased accessibility for smaller investors, further
promoting the efficiency and democratization of the
market.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework.
Concerning the value source of complementarity,
two main insights emerge. First, the application of
blockchain is empowered with the usage of a
combination of other emerging technologies to
innovate the measurement phase (i.e., oracles):
“There are complementarities from a technological
point of view, with the convergence of IoT, Remote
Sensing, Satellite's image and blockchain is possible
to develop D-MRV methodologies” (CIO, Company
C). Secondly, blockchain's open-source logics
facilitate cooperation among various actors, leading
to composability and encouraging innovation in the
carbon market. Governance tokens and DAOs allow
investors to participate in decision-making and share
profits, generating new lock-in mechanisms.
5 DISCUSSION AND
CONCLUSIONS
This study contributes to the call by Bocken,
Heidenreich, Spieth, Tucci and Zott (2022), who
asked researchers to investigate business model
innovation as a mean to address Grand Challenges.
By drawing on the case of voluntary carbon market,
we get to explore how blockchain can contribute to
the improvement of sustainable issues. In particular,
our contribution is twofold.
First, we provide a theoretical contribution to the
BMI and GCs literatures by studying business model
innovation as a means of addressing Grand
Challenges. In particular, we shed light on the so-
called "digital and sustainability imperative
convergence" (George-et-al, 2021). Building on the
business model construct proposed by Zott & Amit
(2010) in their activity-system view, our framework
(fig.1) illustrates three features that characterize
blockchain as enabler of novel forms of design
content, structure and governance; specifically,
blockchain acts as asset enabler, as trust machine and
as coordinated and collaborative action enhancer.
Feature 1: Blockchain as Asset Enabler.
Blockchain acts as an asset enabler as it offers new
ways to design and create digital and real-world
assets. Ownership is a fundamental attribute that
blockchain adds to the internet we use today, which
allows for the emergence of new asset classes.
Governance tokens are a prime example of asset
classes that are built natively on-chain and govern the
consensus mechanism of blockchain protocols and
projects. These tokens offer new forms of stake,
rights, and participation (F. Glaser, 2017; Trabucchi,
Moretto, Buganza, & MacCormack, 2020).
Additionally, tokenized assets are digital twins of
current real assets that are represented and
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transferrable on the distributed ledger (Gan,
Tsoukalas, & Netessine, 2021; George et al., 2021).
The emergence of tokens as a source of design
content creates new activities that are related to token
design (i.e., defining the conditions under which
participants can earn new tokens for contributing
resources to the network and defining the rights
associated with token ownership) (Catalini & Gans,
2020; Forman et al., 2019; F. Glaser, 2017).
Tokens also contribute to sustainable
development by addressing the problem of valuation.
As our research confirms, tokenization transforms
natural capital into precise, manageable, fungible, or
non-fungible, tradeable units for which new markets
can establish prices. By using tokens, it becomes
possible to assess and value ecological and social
assets in new ways. This creates opportunities for
individuals to gain access to asset classes and risks
that may have been beyond their capacity (George et
al., 2021; Santos, Pache, & Birkholz, 2015).
Feature 2: Blockchain as Trust Machine.
The trust machine property is linked to the nature of
its distributed ledger and consensus mechanism.
Smart contracts enable multiple parties who do not
trust one another to engage in exchanges of value
when certain conditions are met (Catalini & Gans,
2020; Forman et al., 2019; Murray, Kuban, Josefy, &
Anderson, 2021). The distributed ledger and
consensus mechanism of blockchain technology have
significant implications for reducing transaction
costs. These costs are associated with intermediaries
and their related expenses, including verification,
searching, and coordination costs, which traditional
and digital intermediaries have emerged to address
(Bailey & Bakos, 1997; Clemons, Reddi, & Row,
1993; Malone, Williamson, 1993; Yates, &
Benjamin, 1987; Zott et al., 2011). Our study shows
that blockchain technology enhance trust and
transparency by reducing costs and time for
validating trading partners. By shifting trust to the
consensus algorithm rather than to a central entity,
blockchain enables actors to trade in a large-scale
decentralized fashion, without the need for a
trustworthy intermediary. This allows participation
for actors who were previously excluded from
existing activity systems, opening new possibilities
for economic and social participation Santos et al.,
2015). Building trust is essential in various domains
of sustainability, especially when exchanging goods
or services that have a social or ecological impact. A
transparent distributed ledger can enhance trust by
preventing information asymmetries and
opportunistic behaviors (George, 2021).
Feature 3: Blockchain as Coordinated and
Collaborative Action Enhancer.
The definition of Grand Challenges provided by
George and colleagues (2016), emphasizes the need
for “coordinated and collaborative effort”. However,
traditional organizational structures may not be
suitable for GCs as they lack centralized control over
their participants, as argued by some researchers
(Ferraro et al., 2015; Howard-Grenville & Spengler,
2022; Luo, Zhang, & Marquis, 2016). Blockchain
protocols pave the way to new distributed governance
paradigms, incentives systems, and new open-source
collaboration mechanisms. These can serve as a
mechanism for designing new forms of rewards
aimed at achieving alignment in addressing Grand
Challenge. This aligns with Adner's (2017) definition
of "ecosystem-as-a-structure," which characterizes
ecosystems as the structural alignment of multiple
partners who must interact to realize a central value
proposition. In the context of Grand Challenges, a
social or environmental challenge may represent the
central value proposition that a set of partners
collectively tackle with their efforts.
Blockchain, Value Creation Logics and
Technological Convergence.
Prior literature has highlighted the importance of
synergy across value logics to achieve good designs
(Amit & Zott, 2001). We find not only that
blockchain based business model exhibit all the value
creation themes (novelty, efficiency,
complementarity and lock-in), but also that there is
strong inter-relationship among them. Specifically,
we show how the "asset enabler" and "trust machine"
properties of blockchain promote efficiency and
novelty logics, while the "coordinated and
collaborative action enhancer" property stimulates
novelty, complementarity, and lock-in logics.
Additionally, building upon Teece's (2018) argument
on technological convergence, we observe that the
composability within different Blockchain protocols,
as well as their integration with other consolidated
and emerging technologies (i.e., oracles, including
remote sensing and satellites) play a crucial role in
unlocking the emerging technology's full potential.
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