Responding to the Bioeconomy: Business Model Innovation in the Forest Sector
Myriad forces are causing fundamental changes in the operating environment of the forest sector as well as in the individual firms striving to compete in twenty-first century, globalized markets. The growing bioeconomy presents a major opportunity for for
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Abstract Myriad forces are causing fundamental changes in the operating environment of the forest sector as well as in the individual firms striving to compete in twenty-first century, globalized markets. The growing bioeconomy presents a major opportunity for forest sector firms to develop new products, explore new markets, and develop new business models. Innovativeness differs across an industry’s life cycle. Product innovation is high at the beginning of an industry’s life cycle and diminishes over time. Process innovation is initially low, peaks later in the life cycle, and eventually tails off to a level similar to product innovation. Forest sector companies have a traditional business culture and operate in a highly mature industry where process innovation and high-volume production tend to be the focus. The resulting culture and context of the industry does not place it well for transition to the bioeconomy. This chapter explores these issues including consideration of pathways for forest sector firms to pursue in order to capitalize on the growing bioeconomy. Keywords Innovation
Business model Bioeconomy Ambidexterity
1 Introduction Myriad forces are causing fundamental changes in the operating environment of the forest sector as well as in the individual firms striving to compete in twenty-first century, globalized markets. A key force that the industry has long dealt with is the pressure to reduce environmental impacts of operations and forest sector companies have become increasingly adept at managing and mitigating environmental impacts. Recent decades have seen changes in the environmental issues of primary concern. In the 1970s, the focus was on emissions to water and air, by the 1980s and 1990s it E. Hansen (&) Department of Wood Science and Engineering, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, 119 Richardson Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 A. Kutnar and S.S. Muthu (eds.), Environmental Impacts of Traditional and Innovative Forest-based Bioproducts, Environmental Footprints and Eco-design of Products and Processes, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0655-5_7
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was deforestation, and presently it is climate change. The interesting dynamic with respect to climate change and forest sector companies is that in many ways companies are now, at least partially, on the other side of the issue. In other words, the forest management practices of the industry, as well as the renewable materials it produces, provide positive contributions to the environment. The strategies and tactics needed to capitalize on the opportunity presented by the bioeconomy, an economy relying on biological rather than fossil resources (Roos 2016), is in sharp contrast to those needed for mitigation of negative impacts. Today we are witnessing the infancy of the bioeconomy and there is much yet to materialize with respect to how the forest industry will embrace the opportunity (Roos and Stendahl 2015). As purveyors of renewable materia
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