Fair Business Models for Climate‐Smart Agriculture: A Design Science Research Approach

ABSTRACT Organisations in agri‐food value chains face urgent demands to address climate change, environmental degradation and social inequities through climate‐smart agriculture (CSA). However, sustained CSA implementation remains constrained by business models (BMs) that fail to offer fair solutions to stakeholders. Existing business model innovation (BMI) literature lacks conceptualisation of fair BMs and methodology for operationalising fairness in BMs, leading to the research question: How can fair BMs for CSA be defined, designed and developed? Using design science research across five European case studies, the study defines a fair BM as a BM in which the design of the value proposition, creation, delivery and capture enables equitable value distribution, inclusive processes, transparency of information and respectful relationships among stakeholders. The study operationalises fairness across the BMI process with stakeholder engagement and change management, deriving eight design requirements and thirteen stakeholder‐validated prototypes. The study advances BMI literature by offering prescriptive knowledge for operationalising fairness in agri‐food BMI.