What's in a name? : une analyse systématique d'une notion émergente, le "business model régénératif".

Abstract

There is an urgent call in the literature to rethink the way business operates in light of accelerating climate change, biodiversity loss, and the transgression of planetary boundaries. Regenerative Business Models (RBM) have emerged as a promising approach — aiming not only to minimise harm but also to actively regenerate ecosystems and strengthen communities. While interest in RBM is growing, their meaning and scope remain unclear in the management field, and no research to date has addressed RBM using the Business Model Canvas as a tool. This thesis conducts a literature review on regenerative business models within the management field, synthesising existing knowledge and drawing connections between different academic contributions to provide greater conceptual clarity of the knowledge on this emerging topic. Building on this synthesis, a new definition of RBM and the first attempt to adapt the Business Model Canvas to regenerative principles were proposed as new contributions, thereby providing a foundation for future empirical validation. Against this backdrop, it can be said that RBM stand out for their potential to drive systemic change, moving beyond traditional sustainability approaches to create net‐positive impacts on both people and the planet. They are stakeholder‐inclusive, place‐based, and adaptive, with profit serving as a means to achieve their goals rather than an end in itself. This thesis is divided into three parts, the first refers to our methodology explaining in detail how our literature review was made as well as our selected corpus of articles. The main part of our work relies on summarising and linking the articles to answer the research question. Finally, the discussion highlights the study’s contributions, notable insights, and unexpected findings, while the conclusion presents the key results, outlines the study’s limitations, and offers directions for future research.