Concerns over sustainable development and the responsible use of natural resources have driven businesses to integrate sustainability into their strategies, leading to the concept of the Sustainable Business Model (SBM). This research aims to analyze the way SBMs and business partnerships co-evolve to enhance the sustainability of the involved organizations and spread sustainability culture beyond the network. This article presents a case study of the company Alisea as a business operating within a circular business model, along with its network of partnerships. The study demonstrates how an environmentally focused business model can also incorporate social and economic aspects through collaborations and identified key enabling factors for this collaborative circular business model: shared values, absence of opportunistic behavior, knowledge sharing, trust, and commitment.The spread of sustainable culture, education and innovation led to new business opportunities for Alisea and its partners, initially within the supply chain, then expanded to non-profit and public sector organisations in a sort of virtuous circle. The multiple-supply chain BM of Alisea and its revolutionary value proposition make way for a new BMs, in which partners co-create new products enabling a sort of ‘restitution’ of growth, thanks to knowledge sharing and relationship creation, in a win–win situation.This paper contributes to the literature on SBMs, business and cross-sector partnerships by expressing the reciprocal influences on their respective paths of evolution and the idea of a single project shared with a partner is only the start of an indefinite series of opportunities based on the network of relationships that supports the project.
