Building competitive advantage with sustainable products – A case study perspective of stakeholders

Sustainability has gained momentum in literature as government and non-governmental policymakers identify measures to fight climate change. While sustainability principles can be good for business the economy, businesses have been slow replace non-sustainable products with sustainable ones. One reason this, we argue, is because a harder time seeing how build stronger competitive advantage than they already offer. This study thus addresses question of innovators around products. Stakeholder theory advises owners interests all stakeholders. paper uses grounded approach based on series interviews 15 key from stakeholders these categories: entrepreneurs, investors, customers, academics/NGO representatives. Our identifies four major interconnected findings, viz: (1) investors are most doubtful concerning innovations, while customers receptive keen involved; (2) entrepreneurs subsequently advised make sure that underlying case their firm well developed much product; (3) overall barrier hindering success some innovations not cost, but human nature put off change until problems become critical; (4) at moment, investing more attractive regions positive regulations such California European countries.