Sustainable business model perspectives for the electric vehicle industry : the case of battery second use

The purpose of this doctoral research dissertation is to examine sustainable business model (SBM) perspectives for the rapidly developing Battery Second Use (B2U) market within the emerging electric vehicle (EV) industry. Previous research has shown that a global mass market adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) is still hindered by the high costs of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Repurposing degraded EV batteries in second use applications holds the potential to reduce first-cost impediments of EVs. The research on new business models is limited. The ones that emerge rapidly within the EV and battery second use (B2U) industries focus mainly on economic aspects without integrating social and environmental dimensions. Simultaneously, the emerging research topic around sustainable business models (SBMs) seem to be able to bridge the environmental management concerns in conjunction with economic and social changes.This thesis further develops and extends extant literature by addressing this paucity through offering an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon key perspectives from the emerging sustainable technology of EVs and its underlying B2U market in relation to SBMs. The research entails both, qualitative and quantitative assessments, to examine the correlation between SBMs and B2U. Major results indicate that B2U has led to innovative cross-sectoral multi stakeholder business relationships, particularly relevant for the previously isolated automotive and energy markets that are now investigating the full potential of second life batteries and hence new business opportunities for the first time in history. B2U holds the potential to facilitate current unsustainable practices in the EV industry. This in turn, will lead towards a faster EV market uptake and improvements of overall sustainability performance through SBM perspectives. Therefore, it was discovered that prospective innovative business models for B2U, which take a multi-stakeholder network centric business model design rather than firm-centric one, may prove to be a viable business case for sustainability. It was further unearthed that B2U leads to shared sustainable value creation mechanism for the EV industry (and newly emerging stakeholders) as part of innovative SBMs. Therefore, this doctoral dissertation proposes a new B2U innovative business model framework that records and explains the stakeholder relationships as an innovative and forming phenomenon, as well as opens new roads for future discussion among researchers and practitioners. This doctoral dissertation has addressed a paucity and inter-disciplinary literature gap and met an industrial and academic need accordingly. Overall, a new research stream emerges on SBMs for EV B2U and it is hoped that more contributions will follow to increase the impact and value of sustainable waste & resource management and the circular economy.El propósito de esta tesis doctoral de investigación, es examinar las diferentes perspectivas de los "Sustainable Business Models" (SBMs) para el mercado de "Battery Second Use" (B2U) ya que este se está desarrollando rápidamente dentro de la industria emergente del vehículo eléctrico (EV). Investigaciones anteriores han demostrado que la aceptación de vehículos eléctricos (EV) en el mercado mundial todavía se ve obstaculizada por los altos costes de las baterías de iones de litio (LIBs). La reutilización de baterías usadas de vehículos eléctricos (EV) en aplicaciones de "segundo uso" (B2U) tiene el potencial de reducir el alto coste de EV en la actualidad. La investigación de nuevos modelos de negocio es limitada. Los modelos que emergen rápidamente dentro de la industria tanto de EV como B2U se enfocan principalmente en aspectos económicos, sin tener en cuenta la importancia de la sociedad y del medio ambiente. Simultáneamente, la investigación en el nuevo campo de los SBMs parece ser capaz de encontrar la solución a las preocupaciones de la gestión medio ambiental a la vez que los cambios económicos y sociales. Esta tesis desarrolla y extiende aún más la literatura interdisciplinaria existente al abordar esta escasez y al ofrecer un enfoque interdisciplinario aprovechando las perspectivas claves de la tecnología sostenible emergente EV y su mercado B2U subyacente en relación con SBM. La investigación implica evaluaciones cualitativas y cuantitativas, para examinar la correlación entre SBMs y B2U. Los principales resultados indican que B2U ha conducido a nuevas relaciones comerciales en múltiples sectores y entre diferentes partes interesadas ("stakeholders"), particularmente relevante para los mercados automotrices y de energía que ahora están investigando todo el potencial de las baterías de segunda vida y, por lo tanto, nuevas oportunidades comerciales por primera vez en la historia. B2U tiene el potencial de facilitar las prácticas actuales no sostenibles en la industria de vehículos eléctricos. Esto, a su vez, conducirá a una adopción más rápida del mercado de vehículos eléctricos y a mejoras del rendimiento general de sostenibilidad a través de las perspectivas de SBMs. Por lo tanto, se ha descubierto que los posibles modelos de negocio innovadores para B2U que se basen en un modelo de negocio centrado en la red de múltiples partes interesadas en lugar del modelo centrado en una empresa podría ser un caso de negocio viable para asegura la sostenibilidad. Además, se ha descubierto que B2U conduce a un mecanismo de creación de valor sostenible compartido en la industria de vehículos eléctricos (y las nuevas partes interesadas emergentes) como parte de SBM innovadores. Por lo tanto, esta tesis doctoral propone un nuevo modelo de negocio innovador de B2U que registra y explica las relaciones con las partes interesadas como un fenómeno innovador y formador, así como abrir nuevos caminos para una futura discusión entre investigadores y profesionales. Esta tesis doctoral ha abordado una brecha de escasez y literatura interdisciplinaria y ha respondido a una necesidad industrial y académica en consecuencia. En general, surge un nuevo flujo de investigación sobre SBM para EV B2U y se espera que se sigan aportando más contribuciones para aumentar el impacto y el valor de la gestión sostenible de residuos y la economía circular.Postprint (published version

Corporate Social Responsibility Through an Economic Lens

Business leaders, government officials, and academics are focusing considerable attention on the concept of “corporate social responsibility” (CSR), particularly in the realm of environmental protection. Beyond complete compliance with environmental regulations, do firms have additional moral or social responsibilities to commit resources to environmental protection? How should we think about the notion of firms sacrificing profits in the social interest? May they do so within the scope of their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders? Can they do so on a sustainable basis, or will the forces of a competitive marketplace render such efforts and their impacts transient at best? Do firms, in fact, frequently or at least sometimes behave this way, reducing their earnings by voluntarily engaging in environmental stewardship? And finally, should firms carry out such profit-sacrificing activities (i.e., is this an efficient use of social resources)? We address these questions through the lens of economics, including insights from legal analysis and business scholarship.corporate social responsibility, voluntary environmental performance

Corporate Social Responsibility Through an Economic Lens

Business leaders, government officials, and academics are focusing considerable attention on the concept of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR), particularly in the realm of environmental protection. Beyond complete compliance with environmental regulations, do firms have additional moral or social responsibilities to commit resources to environmental protection? How should we think about the notion of firms sacrificing profits in the social interest? May they do so within the scope of their fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders? Can they do so on a sustainable basis, or will the forces of a competitive marketplace render such efforts and their impacts transient at best? Do firms, in fact, frequently or at least sometimes behave this way, reducing their earnings by voluntarily engaging in environmental stewardship? And finally, should firms carry out such profit-sacrificing activities (i.e., is this an efficient use of social resources)? We address these questions through the lens of economics, including insights from legal analysis and business scholarship.Corporate Social Responsibility, Voluntary Environmental Performance

How I Love A Pretty Face

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5627/thumbnail.jp

The Loving Cup

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3650/thumbnail.jp

Two Little Love Bees

VERSEWe’ll seek a haven of flowers and trees,Where we’ll sip honey just like the bees;There in the sunshine as time passes by,We’ll live on kisses sweet, just you and I.Two little love bees buzzing in a bower,Feasting on the sweetness of the fairest flower,There we will build a cosy honeycomb,And settle in our home, sweet home.Two little love beesTwo little love bees buzzing in a bower,Feasting on the sweetness of the fairest flower,There we will build a cosy honeycomb,And settle in our home, sweet home.Under a sky of blue we’ll live all day,Deep in the woodland where lovers stray;Where fragrant violets perfume the air,And the red roses bloom everywhere.Two little love bees buzzing in a bower,Feasting on the sweetness of the fairest flower,There we will build a cosy honeycomb,And settle in our home, sweet home.Two little love beesTwo little love bees buzzing in a bower,Feasting on the sweetness of the fairest flower,buzzing in a bower,Feasting on the sweetness of the fairest flower,There we will build a cosy honeycomb,And settle in our home, sweet home.There we will build a cosy honeycomb,And settle in our home, sweet home

Fountain Fay

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/3104/thumbnail.jp

On The Track : Trio : Roland, Spaetling and Ursula

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/5597/thumbnail.jp

Signaling local non-credibility in an automatic segmentation pipeline

The advancing technology for automatic segmentation of medical images should be accompanied by techniques to inform the user of the local credibility of results. To the extent that this technology produces clinically acceptable segmentations for a significant fraction of cases, there is a risk that the clinician will assume every result is acceptable. In the less frequent case where segmentation fails, we are concerned that unless the user is alerted by the computer, she would still put the result to clinical use. By alerting the user to the location of a likely segmentation failure, we allow her to apply limited validation and editing resources where they are most needed. We propose an automated method to signal suspected non-credible regions of the segmentation, triggered by statistical outliers of the local image match function. We apply this test to m-rep segmentations of the bladder and prostate in CT images using a local image match computed by PCA on regional intensity quantile functions. We validate these results by correlating the non-credible regions with regions that have surface distance greater than 5.5mm to a reference segmentation for the bladder. A 6mm surface distance was used to validate the prostate results. Varying the outlier threshold level produced a receiver operating characteristic with area under the curve of 0.89 for the bladder and 0.92 for the prostate. Based on this preliminary result, our method has been able to predict local segmentation failures and shows potential for validation in an automatic segmentation pipeline

Cell intrinsic control of stem cell features in the retina

Post-embryonic neurogenesis relies on the presence of neural stem cells, which are characterized by their multipotency and unique ability to self-renew. Despite their importance for the homeostasis and repair of the central nervous system, the transcriptional network governing stemness in adult neural stem cells is largely unknown. We established the transcription factor Rx2 as proxy for retinal stem cells in the post-embryonic retina of the teleost medaka (O. latipes). By interrogating the regulatory input to the Rx2 cis-regulatory element, we identified four transcription factors (Sox2, Tlx, Gli3, Her9), which distinctly shape the stem cell domain and modulate stem cell features in the retina. First of all, we analyzed the gene expression and found that these genes have distinct spatio-temporal expression patterns in the retinal stem cell domain. Conditional mosaic analysis in vivo confirmed Sox2 and Tlx as activators of Rx2. The ectopic expression of Sox2 or Tlx was sufficient to trigger de-differentiation of post-mitotic neurons and induced stem cell features therein. Conversely, sustained ectopic expression of Gli3 or Her9 repressed Rx2. Gain of Gli3 or Her9 in retinal stem cells arrested cell cycle progression and proliferation. Modification of conserved binding sites in the Rx2 cis-regulatory element revealed the importance of Sox and Gli transcription factors for the precise spatial Rx2 expression in retinal stem cells. We propose that the combinatorial regulatory input of Sox2, Tlx, Gli3, Her9 confines Rx2 expression and other features of retinal stem cells specifically to the periphery of the stem cell domain in the post-embryonic retina. To elucidate the functional role of Rx2 itself, mutants were established with the aid of targetable nucleases. Transcription activator-like effector nucleases were employed to induce double-strand breaks specifically in the Rx2 coding sequence, which in the case of erroneous non-homologous end-joining created sequence alterations at the site of cleavage. The generation of stable, heritable mutations in the endogenous Rx2 locus described here opens the opportunity for future genetic studies of Rx2 in medaka