Sustainable Business Model Innovation in the textile industry

Drivers & Barriers for Sustainable Business Model Innovation

Thesis project description

Broadly my thesis will explore the process of how companies in the textile industry are transforming into more sustainable practices, business models, and strategies. I am particularly interested in the drivers and barriers to creating Sustainable Business Model Innovation. 

This includes, but is not limited to, the strategic focus and governance, how the internal organization can be designed to create patient investments, enabling innovation and collaborative innovation, internal capability development, and how companies collaborate with their stakeholders. 

Managerial value of the research

My thesis will create value by creating new insights to how your company can overcome some of the many challenges that lies in the sustainability journey that all companies have to succeed in these years to survive and gain a competitive advantage. 

My thesis will help discover unhidden challenges and barriers for this journey, helping you to discover new ways of designing your strategy, internal organisation and business model with the purpose of sustainable innovation. 

Research topic motivation

I have been interested in sustainability for as long as I can remember. I am mainly driven by a sense of purpose, and it is essential that my efforts deliver a meaningful outcome or make a positive change in the world. I like thinking about the bigger picture and getting motivation from understanding how things connect - how businesses are organized and how their strategy can help create a better world and contribute positively to our society. Further, I get great satisfaction from actively helping and enabling others to be their best. 

There are many ways in which one can make a positive contribution to the world. However, I have always thought that businesses have a particular direct impact on the world around them and their ability to make significant changes.

I have always been interested in entrepreneurship and innovation and studied it in high school. Further, I have naturally good skills in project management and leadership, thus making the field of Sustainable Business Model Innovation the perfect thesis subject for me, as it combines all the things I am passionate about. 

I have chosen to focus on the textile industry since there are currently many unknown challenges for how the industry can transform to more sustainable practices and business models. 

The many different perspectives I got to analyze business, society, and ethics from my bachelor's in Business Administration & Philosophy, combined with my internship at Etisk Handel Danmark, started to spark my interest in this topic fully. Starting cand.merc. Finance & Strategic Management and PA Consulting, where I also got to work with business model design, made it clear how to combine all this knowledge in my future work and create a positive impact. 

Why collaborate with us

If your company, within the textile industry, is transitioning to more sustainable practices or is about to start the journey, I am your perfect collaboration partner. It is not that important where you are in the process, as there are still so many unresearched challenges in this process. 

First of all, I am deeply interested in the sustainability topic - both regarding the environmental and social aspects, which I also enhance in my spare time. Therefore I also have a lot of insights and knowledge on the topic already.

Besides working with the topic through my studies, I also have substantial work experience when it comes to working with different aspects of companies' sustainability transformations. I worked for almost a year in a multistakeholder organization called Danish Ethical Trading Initiative. Here I gained deep knowledge of various sustainability issues within companies' global value chains and how to tackle them. I also worked on projects that concretely guided SMEs on getting started with Human Rights Due Diligence and SDG through supplier dialogue. You can read more about this in my job description on my profile. 

In my current work as a Junior Consultant at PA Consulting, I have also worked on a sustainability conference focusing on coming legislation from the EU and internal workshops and knowledge sharing on the topic. 

My academic background is unique. I have a bachelors in Business Administration & Philosophy from CBS. From this bachelor, I gained excellent interdisciplinary skills such as critical thinking and connecting business administration and problems within an organization and management with philosophical topics such as ethics, human resources, and society. This is highly relevant when considering how to do a sustainable transformation in your company: combing this academic foundation with a cand. merc. In Finance & Strategic Management, I have gained finance, strategy, and business model design skills, which have given me great insights into companies.

Researcher bio

I would describe myself as very curious, adventurous, and outgoing. In my free time, I enjoy traveling and exploring new places abroad and within my own country. I like to travel in various modes, such as taking the train, going on a road trip, or biking to explore new places and cultures. At the beginning of the year, I went on an interrail trip around Europe by myself, which was a fantastic way to experience local culture and meet many people worldwide. I recently started surfing, which I enjoy, because it is the ultimate way to be entirely in nature without any distractions. On top of that, it is enjoyable and challenging - but once you get up on the board, it is the craziest adrenalin kick. I also enjoy practicing yoga. Although I enjoy nature, I also love feeling a big city's pulsing beat and diversity. I often go to concerts and festivals and visit a modern art museum now and then to feel inspired.

Passion and motivation

My main driver in everything I do is a sense of purpose and thinking about the bigger picture. I am good at understanding and challenging how things connect. I get highly motivated for a task when I can connect it to a meaningful outcome that will positively change the world. I am a natural adapter who is good at figuring out how I can apply my experience and what I know to novel situations or problems. While also being a curious and adventurous individual, I can quickly adapt to many situations. I love developing others and get great satisfaction from actively helping others do their best. This is also reflected in my primary purpose with my thesis and my future career: I want to help companies create positive changes for our society.