This research paper shows how a firm pursues innovation activities for economic, social and environmental value creation in the context of time sensitivity. We make a conceptual link between lean startup thinking, triple bottom line value creation, and organizational capabilities. The case study firm uses a novel experimentation approach to pursue the goal of diverting all of its sold clothing from landfill through a two-year project. This requires substantial changes to the current business practice because in 2012, the clothing retailer recovered 1% of all garments sold. The fibre input value for all garments sold in 2012 exceeded $7m. We found that despite a stated need for fast learning through project experiments, the experiments were not executed quickly. (1) The desire to plan project activities and the lack of lean startup approach expertise across the whole project team hampered fast action. This led to the extension of the project timeline. However, project team confidence about learning by doing increased through privately executed experiments. (2) Some project experiments were not fit to meet the triple bottom value creation project goal and were dropped from the project. Overall, the corporate mindset of economic value creation still dominated.@en

Business model experimentation for sustainability is an intentional and systematic approach to identify, test and learn about value creation strategies that could be adopted by a business in response to current unsustainable trajectories. For businesses such as large clothing retailers the need to alter course is acute as pressure builds from economic, environmental and social angles. The circular economy concept provides a potential powerful lever for change. To date, however, scant research has been conducted on how circular business model experimentation is conducted. We present an in-depth action research case study of a large international clothing retailer embarking on a journey of business model experimentation for circularity: the processes, methods, roles and the organisation in light of the need to address broad sustainability challenges in the business. It was found that experimentation activities oscillated between slow and loaded, and faster and un-weighted modes. While an intentional and stepwise process was sought, in reality it was largely emergent and highly iterative. Through this iterative process, new circular business models were generated that co-exist with current non-circular ones. Confidence in experimentation as a business capability also increased through this collaborative project. This study provides insights into how to conduct lean startup type business model experimentation for circularity in a large organisation. For practitioners, the benefits of academic-industry collaboration, and the oscillating dynamics of business model experimentation are illuminated.@en

Business model experimentation for sustainability is an intentional and systematic approach to identify, test and learn about value creation strategies that could be adopted by a business in response to current unsustainable trajectories. For businesses such as large clothing retailers the need to alter course is acute as pressure builds from economic, environmental and social angles. The circular economy concept provides a potential powerful lever for change. To date, however, scant research has been conducted on how circular business model experimentation is conducted. We present an in-depth action research case study of a large international clothing retailer embarking on a journey of business model experimentation for circularity: the processes, methods, roles and the organisation in light of the need to address broad sustainability challenges in the business. It was found that experimentation activities oscillated between slow and loaded, and faster and un-weighted modes. While an intentional and stepwise process was sought, in reality it was largely emergent and highly iterative. Through this iterative process, new circular business models were generated that co-exist with current non-circular ones. Confidence in experimentation as a business capability also increased through this collaborative project. This study provides insights into how to conduct lean startup type business model experimentation for circularity in a large organisation. For practitioners, the benefits of academic-industry collaboration, and the oscillating dynamics of business model experimentation are illuminated.@en

The Circular Economy is viewed as an important driver for resolving resource issues and tackling sustainability issues more broadly. The fashion industry operates in a largely linear way and suffers from various environmental, societal and economic challenges. In a Circular Economy, first and foremost, products need to be retained at the highest level, thus slowing resource loops. Slowing resource loops goes against current fast fashion trends and therefore appears the most difficult approach to pursue. This paper investigates how a large established retailer aims to slow resource loops as part of a broader project targeted to significantly reduce textile waste to landfill. The retailer collaborated with a university partner to pursue circular business model experiments. This paper reports on the approach for a slowing resource loops experiment around building sewing capabilities. Suggestions for future research and practice on circular business model experimentation are included.@en

Business experimentation is a key avenue for accelerating change for sustainability. In contrast to experimentation in natural sciences, benefitting from controlled situations, business experimentation aims to explore the diverse possibilities that a business could create value from, or understand what works in which particular situations in a real life business context. While at present most popular with start-ups, this paper argues that large businesses can also find inspiration in business experimentation to develop sustainable business models and accelerate positive change for sustainability. Five illustrative cases are included of business experimentation for sustainability by focusing on pivots (modifications) in the business model. This paper only scratches the surface of the potential impactful new research field of business (model) experimentation for sustainability. Future work on sustainable business experimentation for start-ups and mature businesses is viewed as a powerful future research avenue to accelerate change in industries.@en