Make your business Flourish!
Learn how your enterprise can make a real difference
and generate a meaningful, sustainable impact.
Join the Discovery Series
Join our Discovery Series to explore how organisations can improve their economic, environmental and social performance – and how to design business models today that support a thriving world.
The Flourishing Enterprise Discovery Series is based on 10 years of working with over 2,000 startup founders and business leaders, lessons learned from a global community of business practice and multiple published research on the design of business models that enable the possibility for Flourishing – the possibility for widespread human wellbeing.
At the core of the approach is the Flourishing Business Canvas: an innovative and science-based design tool to create sustainable business models.
The Flourishing approach is used by:
Our Approach
The Flourishing Enterprise Discovery Series takes a science-based system approach to designing businesses that are fit-for-the-future and generate meaningful and authentic impact in the world.
Our approach is based on ten years of research and testing, multiple published papers, book chapters and more.
Our approach is used by the pan-EU climate change initiative EIT Climate-KIC, Norway’s national innovation agency, the UN Institute for Training and Research, the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto, Halmstad University in Sweden, Holonomics Education in Brazil, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development, University of Waterloo, Canada, Institute for Evolutionary Leadership, California, GCE NODE a Norwegian SME business development community.
The series follows an experiential approach: participants will apply tools to their own case during the sessions and reflect with peers about the impact for their own business.
Join us for this ground-breaking innovative experiential program in Sustainable Business Model Design.
Why Attend the Discovery Series?
Find pathways to address the following challenges:
- I am thinking about starting an enterprise that will make a real difference and generate meaningful sustainable impact.
- I am tasked to develop a pathway for carbon emissions reduction in my organisation, and I want to find out how to best connect this to our business model.
- I am leading an enterprise and believe we can be doing better in supporting the UN Strongly Sustainable Development Goals.
- I coach/support entrepreneurs or I consult with business leaders and want to expand the help I can offer to my clients.
- I am interested in learning how to use the latest business modelling tools – the Flourishing Business Canvas.
- I want a hands-on interactive learning experience!
What will you Learn?
New perspectives and knowledge about the role of business in enabling a Flourishing future for all.
About risks and opportunities sustainability brings along for your startup or organisation.
Practice using the latest tools that support sustainable business model design. Watch this video from startup team NuOceans who share their experience.
The mindsets and attitudes required to design sustainable business models.
Examples and case studies from leaders who have successfully adopted sustainable business design approaches.
Confidence to start integrating sustainable business model design in your work.
Why 'Flourishing'?
If we wish to have the possibility for widespread human wellbeing (what we refer to as ‘flourishing’), we will need everyone, and especially people building and leading enterprises, to do things differently. To enable flourishing and true sustainability for the whole of society, we need to be way more intentional about how we design our enterprises with this goal in mind. Helping you on your journey to a flourishing enterprise is our mission.
Bonus e-Learning Course
In addition, you will gain unlimited 12-month access to a full e-Learning course on Sustainable Business Model Design that you can use along-side and after the Flourishing Enterprise Discovery Series to practice and deepen your knowledge!
Discovery Series – Dates and Times
The series is made of four classes, each lasting 3 hours.
- Thursday Nov 4th 2021 - 16:00 CET / 15:00 UK time / 11:00 East Coast Summertime - Find in your local timezone and add to calendar
- Thursday Nov 11th 2021 - 16:00 CET / 15:00 UK time / 10:00 East Coast Daylight Savings time - Find in your local timezone and add to calendar
- Thursday Nov 18th 2021 - 16:00 CET / 15:00 UK time / 10:00 East Coast Daylight Savings time - Find in your local timezone and add to calendar
- Thursday Nov 25th 2021 - 16:00 CET / 15:00 UK time / 10:00 East Coast Daylight Savings time - Find in your local timezone and add to calendar
Pricing
- Full Price: £425
(this will be converted to your local currency on the check out page, unless you opt. to stay with GBP)
- Early Bird: £340 (20% off) Up to midnight FRIDAY Oct 22nd
- Scholarships and First Explorer places: Options available (see below)
It is important to us that this course is available to all. If the payment options are not accessible for you, please contact us. We have a number of scholarships available. Should you want to apply for one of these places, please email tatiana@flourishingbusiness.org and/or fill in this application form.
First Explorers (and coaches who have previously attended a Sustainable Business Modelling TTT course) are eligible for a discount, please use the email above if you’d like to check!
Outline of the Discovery Series training
Below is the curriculum of the training and what you can expect to learn and put into action on this journey of discovery.
Session 1
The Case for Flourishing - Business design for better outcomes
Session 1 will provide perspectives on the benefits of a sustainable business approach for any organisations performance. Together, we will explore how engaging in a new approach to business design creates opportunities to improve innovation and impact potential. In this session, you will get to know what is required to enable a sustainable business design process in terms of mindset, tools and process.
Session 2
Become a Business Model Designer
Session 2 is centred on business model design using the Flourishing Business Canvas. During the session you will learn the process of business model design by working with others through a case study. You will then improve and risk assess your models design by using the feasibility, desirability and viability test.
Session 3
Test Your Business Model
Session 3 explores a Flourishing approach to testing and validating a business model.
You will be exploring validation approaches and the ethics of validation. In addition, you will get to practice business model iteration through a case study.
Session 4
Make It Real – How do you apply this in your own context
The concluding session will bring together the learnings of the series and provide pathways for your own sustainable business modelling journey. By listening to the stories and advice of our Guest Speakers, you will be able to reflect on how flourishing business design can be adopted to your own context. You will leave the series with confidence to trigger a sustainable business design process and to develop deeper skills for business design and transformation.
Guest Speakers
Petra Kassun-Mutch
Founder – Eve-Volution Inc. and Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company
“I work to radically reform entrepreneurship education, policy making and startup ecosystems to align with a vision of a just, equitable, diverse, post extraction-based economy in which all beings (including the planet) thrive.”
PK Mutch (Petra) is deeply committed to transforming society through the power of innovation and entrepreneurship. She is the founder of Eve-Volution Inc. a B-Corp certified enterprise that seeks to advance equity and inclusion in the innovation economy and more recently founded the Feminist Enterprise Commons (FEC), a new online feminist learning community. Eve-Volution was recognized as a 2017 “Best for the World” B Corp in the Community Development category and in 2018 PK was recognised as one of Canada’s Inspiring 50 women.
Petra is also the publisher of LiisBeth, a 2017 Canadian digital publishing awards nominated magazine that serves as the convener and voice of now over 2500+ entrepreneurial feminists globally who intentionally design enterprises focused on leveraging the power of enterprise and feminist theory, values and practices to help make the world a more inclusive, safe and just place for all. She is also a certified Growth Wheel business results coach, Lean4Flourishing First Explorer, and Feminist Business Model Canvas design and implementation facilitator, and holds an EMBA from the Rotman School of Management. LiisBeth is a founding producer of the Entrepreneurial Feminist Forum—an educational, collaboration- and resilience-crafting conference for entrepreneurial feminists of all genders.
Before launching Eve-Volution, Petra served as Executive Director, OCADU Imagination Catalyst, where she re-designed, renewed, and better-aligned efforts to support, train and coach “internet of things” and industrial design-centric entrepreneurs in “the art of the start”. Petra has also held the position of Entrepreneur-in-Residence, University of Guelph, and founder and CEO of the awarding-winning Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company. She also had an 18-year career as a senior publishing executive. Petra brings ten years of public and private enterprise board experience including The Greenbelt Foundation Advisory Board (to present), the Dean’s Advisory Board at the Rotman School of Management (to 2014); Queen’s University Centre for Responsible Leadership; the Canadian Nature Conservancy (National Board), and ZooShare.ca Vice-Chair of the Board at OCADU.
Panos Panagiotakopoulos
Sustainability Professor & Consultant
Panos is a sustainability researcher and consultant with 15+ years of experience in coaching organizations to assess and integrate sustainability. As principal and founder of the boutique consulting Close the Loop, Panos has advised companies from the financial, agricultural, real estate, construction and retail sectors on sustainability strategy, climate change, life cycle assessment and business modelling. He has also provided training on these topics to professionals and students in Canada, Europe and Asia.
Panos studied Environmental Engineering and holds a PhD in Corporate Sustainability from Heriot-Watt University (Scotland). He has authored academic papers on sustainable business design and developed an online tool to help businesses choose effective sustainability certifications (ecolabels) for their products and services.
Panos is a professor and coordinator of the Sustainable Business Management program of Seneca College and teaches sustainability and business design at the University of Toronto and OCAD University.
Kristian F. L. Amlie
Advisor at Bouvet.no
Kristian is an advisor at Bouvet.no – a Norwegian consultancy which designs, develops and provides advice on IT solutions and digital communication. He’s interested in best and future practices within an organization and the publication of these practices to a larger number of employees mainly by electronic means. His goal is to distribute knowledge and the understanding of a complete value chain in the business process. He implements disruptive technology and business models.
Reflections from start-up NuOceans on the benefits of sustainable business modelling
Participating allowed me to better understand the support founders need to validate their assumptions through reflecting on the feasibility, desirability, and viability of their business models.
SHANNON
Startup Experience Specialist, District3
Meet the Facilitators
Christoph Auch
Christoph Auch takes his motivation day-by-day from driving sustainable entrepreneurship successfully in a more and more complex environment – together with the people around him. In this context, continuous learning is particularly important to him.
For more than ten years, Christoph has been involved in co-developing new business management methods which have been applied in various industries. This has shown: The courage for taking on a sustainable transformation of strategies and business models pays off for enterprises with both an improved competitive position and stronger ability to innovate.
Christoph holds an MBA from University of Cologne and a CEMS Master in International Management. He has previously worked with international business, research and education organisations with the objective to build capabilities for tackling the biggest challenge of our time: climate change – with an entrepreneurial approach. In this light, he has helped to create a number of consulting and training services for executives in the areas of business design & strategy, leadership, and systems thinking. Christoph has experience in consulting, coaching and facilitation of participatory processes in complex contexts. As a senior consultant at ENDURE consulting, he would like to support companies to lay the strategic foundation for sustainable economic success by making business transformation a key success factor.
Christoph supports development and implementation of creative entrepreneurial solutions with clear goals. For him it is important to include all stakeholders in this process, as best results can be achieved together only.
Ondine Hogeboom
Ondine is a highly creative and innovative business developer and strategist, having started seven successful social enterprises over two decades in South Africa, Botswana and Canada. Ondine specialises in flourishing (the combination of social impact, environmental regeneration and financial viability) business model design. She is the co-founder of Lean4Flourishing (L4F), an organisation focused on coaching, mentorship and the design of start-up accelerator and incubator programs that support Flourishing goals.
In addition she holds an MBA, is a certified Intrinsic coach and Mindfulness facilitator. She is the author of Lean Start-up for Social Enterprise and Lean Startup Supporting Sustainability-as-Flourishing during the Early Stages of Enterprise Development e-books. She currently works as a lead expert for European Union Climate KIC on Flourishing business model design, has worked with over 300 entrepreneurs and is collaborating on projects in Europe, North America, South and West Africa. Ondine is a settler in Canada and resides on the unneeded lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation in Tiohtià:ke.
Antony Upward
Antony Upward (@aupward) believes that we need a world where business no longer only attempts to do less harm, but instead sets as its goal the flourishing of human and all other life. To bring about this audacious vision, Antony takes the role of a pracademic - a practicing academic.
As an academic Antony is an adjunct Professor, Faculty of Design, OCAD University, Toronto, Canada, and a Visiting Professor in the Business Model Innovation group at the Centre for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Learning, Halmstad University, Sweden. He is the co-founder of the Strongly Sustainable Business Model Group – a global community of practice that is evolving to becoming the planetary-wide Flourishing Enterprise Institute. As a practitioner Antony is a Certified Management Consultant, Flourishing Enterprise Designer and member of the Systemic Design Association.
Through his research and practice Antony originated a fit-for-the-21st Century business modelling tool, the Flourishing Business Canvas. This is now being used by over 250 organizations and individuals around the world, including EIT-Climate-KIC, Innovation Norway, UN Institute for Training & Research (UNITAR), the Centre for Social Innovation (Toronto), Georgian College, and two initiatives he helped to co-found Flourishing Startups and Enterprise Evolution.
Antony holds a Masters of Environmental Studies in Business Model Design and Sustainability and a Graduate Diploma in Business and the Environment from York University. He has a number of increasingly well-cited papers about his research and practice, along with a recent book chapter on flourishing strategy design. Antony believes there are many opportunities for you to join him in this work to enable the possibility of flourishing for all at scale. Explore your possibilities via Invitation.AntonyUpward.name
Reviews from our previous participants
Here’s what others have to say about the Discovery Series:
Partners
Flourishing Enterprise Innovation Toolkit is proud to be partnering on the design and delivery of this Flourishing Enterprise Discovery Series with:
- Flourishing Startups – lean4flourishing.biz
- e-studi – e-studi.co.uk
- ENDURE Consulting – endure-consulting.com/en
an executive learning journey designed by
