2024

Römer-Paakkanen, Tarja; Lindell, Petra

The business environment is changing fast as the uncertainty, volatility, complexity, and ambiguity are making it difficult to look clearly into the future. However, we know that the ecological crisis has an impact on the entire world and every business also in the future. Businesses must now at the latest consider sustainability in all its forms (i.e., ecologic, social, and economic), and the fact that its importance will continue to grow in the future. According to Nosratabadi et al. (2019), there are also external pressures and motivations from international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that encourage the organizations to be thrilled to shift toward sustainability. Thus, the application of sustainable business models is increasingly widespread among different industries and sectors. This article introduces the Zebra ScaleUp -project, where training and coaching pilots will be implemented on Zebra companies. The unique characteristic of scalable Zebra companies is that, unlike Unicorns who focus on hyper growth, Zebra companies focus on both profitability and sustainability and value stable and ethical growth. (Harnish 2014). The dual focus gives Zebra the opportunity to drive meaningful change, which also promotes a more sustainable business ecosystem.