Abstract

This paper suggests an empirical methodology to use theoretical Sustainable Business Models (SBMs) in making sustainable (i.e., participatory decisions involving economic, social and environmental features) and rational (i.e., informed and consistent) decisions with respect to what, who, where, when, and how to do. The case study, focused on alternative reuses of offshore gas platforms (i.e., a complicated case due to the absence of previous stakeholders’ experiences at local and national level), identified when (i.e., the end as opposed to the beginning of extraction activities) and where (i.e., the economic, social and environmental contexts of the Adriatic Sea in Abruzzo region, Italy). A questionnaire, submitted to stakeholders, produced the relative weights required by the tested SBM (i.e., a comprehensive model recently proposed by Lüdeke-Freund et al., 2018); it reached a conclusion about how (i.e., in favour of majority decisions as opposed to representative decisions); and it highlighted a sample size issue (i.e., solved with a 50% increase of stakeholders involved). In summary, the methodology suggested in this paper applied to a comprehensive SBM for a complicated case study produced an empirical sustainable decision which is consistent with relative weights expressed by stakeholders. However, this decision is theoretically wrong, since eco-design (empirically correlated with the proper institutional approach for who) should have been preferred to circular economy (empirically correlated with the proper cooperative approach for who). In other words, information gaps about what (mainly due to an overemphasis put on social features) must be solved with additional meetings between experts and stakeholders.