Workshop

Exclusive Workshop · Oct 29, 2026

Turn sustainability from a constraint you defend into business opportunities you design.

October 29th, 2026 · 18:45–21:00

Impact Hub Zürich (Kraftwerk), Room K6

Strictly limited to 20 participants

CHF 109 · includes your card deck & apéro

A 2.5-hour hands-on evening for sustainability and innovation leads: work a real case with 45 proven design patterns and leave with a tangible business-model idea you can bring back to your organisation.

Apply & Secure My Spot → Application takes less than 5 minutes

🚨 Built for in-house sustainability & innovation practitioners across varied business models. Spots are limited to 20. Applications close September 27th.

By the end of the evening, you'll walk away with:

A tangible business-model idea

designed by you, on a real case.

A method for any challenge

45 proven patterns you can apply across your business models.

Opportunity to focus

Provide solutions instead of redefining the problem.

Program

Agenda

One focused evening without passive presentations, but hands-on work and insightful co-ideation.

18:45

Arrival & Welcome

Check in and settle in. Your card deck and the participant introduction awaits you. The tone is informal, curious, and peer-level from the very start.

19:00

Opening & Framing

Christof sets the scene: why Sustainable Business Model Design matters now, and what makes this evening different by not lecturing, nor sales pitching, but a shared exploration instead.

19:10

Impulse: The 45 Sustainable Business Model Patterns

With Lorenzo Massa, author of the method, joining as guest, we unpack why the 45 patterns matter and the logic behind them, as well as how the cards translate theory into practice, with examples of where companies get stuck today.

19:30

Hands-on Card Work

The core of the evening. In small groups of 4 to 6 participants, you work with the card deck on a real business challenge. On the prepared case we will design a sustainable business model in 4 steps: Challenge, Opportunity, Ideation and Synthesis.

20:30

Collective Reflection & Harvest

Groups share back. What surprised you? Which patterns felt most powerful or counterintuitive? A facilitated debrief with a personal take-away exchange to turn experience into lasting insight.

20:50

Outlook & Soft Bridge

Christof closes the structured session with a reflection on the evening and opens a window to what deeper engagement with these tools could look like for your business, including our coaching offer.

21:00+

Networking & Informal Close

Apéro, conversations, and personal exchanges with some drinks and food. Your card deck, new business insights and new network contacts are going home with you. They're values you can keep using for a long time after tonight.

The Team

Who Are We

A hands-on evening facilitated by Christof Rink, built on the Sustainable Business Model Design method created by Lorenzo Massa, who joins as impulse speaker and coach.

Christof Rink

Your Host

Christof Rink

Facilitator · Founder SustainInno

Founder of SustainInno and Unconference Helvetia, and your facilitator for the evening. Christof designs and runs hands-on learning experiences for big corps, SMEs and startups, bridging strategic frameworks with real-world implementation challenges. Visioning himself as a system-level architect, he invests into community and platform building by organizing events like this on a pro bono basis.

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Lorenzo Massa

Guest Speaker & Coach

Lorenzo Massa

Advisor & Professor · Author of SBMD

Professor at Aalborg University Business School and Associate Director at Change Logic LTT. Adjunct faculty for executive education e.g. at EPFL and member of the World Economic Forum's expert network for Innovation. Author of Sustainable Business Model Design and the research behind the 45 patterns. He joins the workshop as advisor and coach.

LinkedIn →

The Framework

Method Overview

There are 45 proven patterns for creating a sustainable business model. Follow the right ones to create your own.

Why patterns

Sustainability is more complex than most standard, one-size-fits-all methods acknowledge, and a rigid plan rarely survives contact with a real business model. In our view, the method is both simple and respectful of the complexity of a sustainable business model. That's why we think it is the best applicable method for bringing real solutions to your business model.

What it is

The Sustainable Business Model Design method turns the "how" of sustainability into something concrete: 45 proven patterns, drawn from how real companies have solved real challenges. The patterns represent the essence of solutions that create more ecological, social, or economic value.

How to use them

There are 3 ways to apply them:

as major design principles for your whole organisation,
to design or redesign a full business model,
or to innovate one specific part of your model.

And they're flexible. A pattern can shift from one use to the next as your thinking evolves.

What you'll leave with

Our goal is that, by the end of the evening, you'll have learned to use these patterns to design and optimize sustainable business models yourself, and to apply them in your work routine and with colleagues, boosting their effectiveness.

Sustainable Business Model Design Pattern Triangle

© Lüdeke-Freund, Breuer, Massa · sustainablebusiness.design

For instance, Take-Back Management (19) and Sustainable Product Design (10) sit between the ecological and economic corners, far from the social one, whereas Data for Social Good (28) or Value for Money Education (33) sit closer to the social corner, helping design business models inclusive of often-neglected groups.

Workshop Case

One real company challenge - explored across the entire business model

At the centre of the evening is one real, end-to-end business model challenge, professionally prepared for the workshop.

A strong, independently prepared case is already in place as a fallback, ensuring the full participant experience in every scenario. At the same time, the featured case slot remains open for one selected corporate partner, giving that company the opportunity to make its own live strategic challenge the centrepiece of the workshop and receive the tailored case development and management synthesis outlined below.

Together with the selected company, we will turn one tangible product or product family into a professionally developed executive case, broad enough to explore economic, environmental and social value creation across the full business model.

For Participants

Apply the 45 patterns to a concrete strategic challenge

Compare perspectives with a carefully curated group and experience how pattern-based thinking opens opportunities beyond incremental sustainability improvements.

For the Case Partner

Turn one real challenge into strategic options

We professionally develop a reusable executive case, stress-test the challenge with 20 carefully selected practitioners and leaders from different industries, and translate the workshop output into a concise management synthesis of strategic options and potential next-step experiments.

One Selected Corporate Case Partner

Could your company provide the case?

The case-partner slot for the 29 October workshop is currently open to one selected company. As the workshop and cohort are already in place, this is a time-sensitive opportunity: the partnership must be confirmed by 25 September and case development will begin the following week.

The case partner contributes through three meetings and a maximum of four hours in total. Sensitive information can be sanitised and protected through a standard participant confidentiality commitment.

To explore whether your challenge could be the right fit, contact us at info@sustaininno.ch

Discuss Your Case →

Follow the Conversation

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