Analysis of Key Success Factors for Eco-Business Through Case Studies in Japan

In order to solve environmental issues, transition form conventional business to environmentally conscious business (Eco-business) is eagerly required. In order to promote Eco-business, it will be effective to support finding out Eco-business ideas. To do so, this paper takes an approach that provides business designer with general rules and prerequisites extracted from existing Eco-businesses. This paper collects 130 examples of Eco-businesses in Japan, investigates and classifies them to develop general guidelines and checklists for success of them. As a result, four customer’s values provided by Eco-businesses, eight rules that relates an environmental benefits of the society to the customer’s value, and eight rules for reducing business costs are derived. A tool for planning for new eco-business is also proposed.