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Background & History

The Beginning

The Flourishing Business Canvas was originally conceived as part of a graduate thesis at York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and Schulich School of Business between 2010 and 2013.  It was then refined by members of the Strategic Innovation Lab at the Ontario College of Art and Design University.

Watch Us In Action

To learn about the original research behind the Flourishing Business Canvas please watch this video.

"The First Explorers"

From 2013 to 2022 the Flourishing Business Canvas was tested and further refined by a specially selected community of “First Explorers”: more than 320 individuals and organizations in 47 countries around the world.  These First Explorers used the Canvas with 1000’s of business leaders, entrepreneurs and students in workshops, courses, consulting engagements and more. Together they invested tens of thousands of hours.  In-turn the First Explorers provided valuable feedback to improve the Canvas.  The First Explorers also provided input to create other elements of the Flourishing Enterprise Innovation Toolkit, of which the Canvas is a part. 

The First Explorers included:

  • The national innovation agency of Norway - Innovation Norway (Oslo). As a result of their extensive engagement with the Flourishing Business Canvas, Innovation Norway has standardized all their business modelling work across Norway using the canvas.
  • The pan-European Union climate change initiative active in 24 countries - EIT-Climate-KIC (Amsterdam)
  • The preeminent Canadian centre for social innovation - Centre for Social Innovation (Toronto)
  • A leading entrepreneurial incubator in Quebec - District 3 at Concordia University (Montreal)
  • An innovation cluster of small and medium business in Southern Norway - GCE NODE (Kristiansand)
  • A leading flourishing oriented consulting company in Brazil - Holonomics (San Paulo)
  • A leading business and innovation school in Sweden - Halmstad University (Halmstad)
  • A leading school for the environment, enterprise and development in Canada - University of Waterloo (Waterloo)
  • A leading community college in focused on flourishing change making and social innovation in Canada - Georgian College (Barrie)
  • A leading systemic change making institute in California - Institute for Evolutionary Leadership (Oakland)
  • A regional government department of economics in Belgium - Vlaanderen is Omgeving (Ghent)
  • Coaches to startups and entrepreneurs – for-profit, social enterprise and indigenous
  • Strategy and innovation consultant thought-leaders
  • Academics teaching and researching in the area of sustainable business models
  • And many more

Flourishing Enterprise Movement

We are not alone in believing that Flourishing Enterprises are an important part of realizing a future where humans and all other life flourish on this planet together for generations to come.  Other members of this movement include: