Photovoltaic power plants: a multicriteria approach to investment decisions and a case study in western Spain

his paper proposes a compromise programming (CP) model to help investors decide whether to construct photovoltaic power plants with government financial support. For this purpose, we simulate an agreement between the government, who pursues political prices (guaranteed prices) as low as possible, and the project sponsor who wants returns (stochastic cash flows) as high as possible. The sponsor s decision depends on the positive or negative result of this simulation, the resulting simulated price being compared to the effective guaranteed price established by the country legislation for photovoltaic energy. To undertake the simulation, the CP model articulates variables such as ranges of guaranteed prices, tech- nical characteristics of the plant, expected energy to be generated over the investment life, investment cost, cash flow probabilities, and others. To determine the CP metric, risk aver- sion is assumed. 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Closed-Loop supply chains in circular economy business models

With the emergence of the circular economy (CE) approach into business models, there is need for deeper understanding of resource loops activities and how current supply chains can support the development of emerging CE business models. However, there is still limited research addressing the conceptualization of closed loops in the supply chain literature. This work addresses this research gap and proposes a typology for closed loops that is independent from the type of product under concern. Our findings suggest that there are two types of closed-loop supply chains in circular business models. Further work is envisaged to understand how companies can effectively develop their closed-loop supply chains as part of their transformation towards a more circular business model

Towards a conceptual framework of business models for sustainability

Theorists and practitioners highlight the importance of business for progress in sustainable consumption and production (SCP). In this context business models are discussed as meta factors that can support the adoption of cleaner products and processes, sustainable supply chains and further contributions towards SCP. The article is about business model innovation and the creation of private and public benefits. From a strategy perspective business model innovation is an approach to design, implement and change business models to create and secure competitive advantage. It is supposed that business models can also support eco-innovations. If companies subscribe to sustainability strategies, their business models can help bridging technological innovations, organizational aspects and market positions. Furthermore, the business model itself can become subject to eco-innovation and thus support the realization of business cases for sustainability. The article follows a theoretical, deductive approach. A conceptual framework is developed that combines sustainability strategies, eco-innovation, the role of business models and pivotal ideas about value creation with regard to private and public benefits. This approach is discussed as essential driver of eco-innovations. Starting with sufficiency, efficiency and consistency strategies helps identifying primary challenges and is assumed to be the obvious first step towards a broader research agenda on \u91business models for sustainability\u92. The framework includes definitions such as \u91business model eco-innovation\u92 and \u91extended customer value\u92 and propositions about how these concepts interrelate. It allows for developing further theoretical and empirical research topics. The review shows that the state-of-the-art literature is far from offering such an agenda

Ontology-Based Visualization for Business Model Design

Part 5:Enterprise OntologiesInternational audienceThe goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of combining visualization and reasoning for business model design by combining the machine-interpretability of ontologies with a further development of the widely accepted business modeling tool, the Business Model Canvas (BMC). Since ontologies are a machine-interpretable representation of enterprise knowledge and thus, not very adequate for human interpretation, we present a tool that combines the graphical and human interpretable representation of BMC with a business model ontology. The tool connects a business model with reusable data and interoperability to other intelligent business information systems so that additional functionalities are made possible, such as a comparison between business models. This research follows the design science strategy with a qualitative approach by applying literature research, expert interviews, and desk research. The developed AOAME4BMC tool consists of the frontend, a graphical web-based representation of an enhanced BMC, a web service for the data exchange with the backend, and a specific ontology for the machine-interpretable representation of a business model. The results suggest that the developed tool AOAME4BMC supports the suitability of an ontology-based representation for business model design