Introduction

Problem statement

Current conceptualizations of absolute sustainability (Hauschild et al. 2020) refer to the ecological limitations of the planet and the measurable interference of human activities with the planetary boundaries (Steffen et al. 2015). The “Sustainable Development Paradigm for the Anthropocene” (Rockström 2015) describes a reconnection process of human development with the biosphere. According to this novel approach, sustainability implies a hierarchical structure between economies, human societies and the biosphere, which provides life-supporting functions for humankind (Rockström 2015). Furthermore, the trespassing of currently five out of nine planetary boundaries (Persson et al. 2022) requires consideration (Randers et al. 2018). Sustainable development describes a transformative process of human societies to achieve a sustainable and resilient state on this planet. To enter a sustainable development pathway in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs, UN 2015), vast societal changes are required, which are, e.g., outlined by Sachs et al. (2019) as the “Six Transformations”.Footnote 1 These societal transformations can be understood as transformations of socio-technical systems or as “reconfiguration processes” (Geels 2002) of technologies, which are embedded in societies on systemic (or global), sub-systemic (or regional) and elementary (or local) levels (Geels 2002).

Socio-technical systems describe and represent complex interactions of humans with technologies and influence the development of societies (Geels et al. 2017). These systems can be differentiated based on their purpose (Siddiqi and Collins 2017) or their spatial expansion (Coenen et al. 2012). However, similarities can be identified when assessing the impact on sustainability, as socio-technical systems are connected with natural resource systems and deeply rooted in societies for generating services and providing for the needs of humanity (Savaget et al. 2019). Therefore, transformative processes or new conceptualizations of socio-technical systems demand a life cycle perspective (Kara et al. 2018) to enable “connected lifecycle systems” for a symbiotic behavior in a system-of-systems environment (Kobayashi et al. 2020). The consideration of socio-technical systems in the context of exceeded planetary boundaries (Steffen et al. 2015) requires a distinction of systemic impacts on sustainability (Geels 2018). Figure 1 visualizes three types of impacts on sustainability and their characteristics over a system’s life cycle.

Fig. 1
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Negative, zero and positive impacts of socio-technical systems on absolute sustainability

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Negative impact Negative impacts occur through an inappropriate system design and shortcomings of relative sustainability approaches (Hauschild 2015). Based on reductionist principles (WBCSD 2000), relative sustainability conceptualizations failed to deliver due to rebound effects or changing external circumstances. Negative environmental impacts cause additional pressure on the planetary boundaries and generate a further exceeding of ecological limits through socio-economic processes (Bjørn and Hauschild 2013). Negative social impacts reduce human wellbeing by generating adverse effects on, e.g., health, safety, access to resources, local capacity building, employment or wages (Goedkoop et al. 2018).

Zero impact Neutral environmental impacts represent the effect of appropriate effectiveness strategies such as substitution and/or regeneration (Hauschild et al. 2020). Neutral social impacts maintain human wellbeing through compliance with international standards and local laws as well as meeting basic requirements of affected stakeholders (Goedkoop et al. 2018). An effective system design requires the integration of solutions, which avoid generating additional pressure on planetary boundaries (Bjørn et al. 2016) and human wellbeing. This implies a life cycle-oriented evaluation of the system behavior in an ecological and social context.

Positive impact Positive impacts aim at supporting sustainable development in a connected ecological and/or social system to achieve a state of absolute sustainability. Positive ecological impacts aim at enabling ecological resilience (Chapin III et al. 2011) through an active counteracting on exceeded planetary boundaries and—if necessary—a compensation of historical emissions (Stoknes and Rockström 2018). Positive social impacts can be understood as socio-economic activities to maintain and enhance human wellbeing (Dyllick and Rost 2017). Corresponding system design strategies apply an integrative perspective (Ceschin and Gaziulusoy 2016), in which the relationship between the biosphere, society and the socio-technical system is carefully evaluated.

From a system perspective, the conceptualization of “positive impact for absolute sustainability” faces various challenges concerning its definition and assessment of impacts. As Bjørn et al. (2020) conclude, “it is necessary to explore what actions policy makers, the private sectors and citizens can take to drive the innovations in production and consumption that are needed to reduce impacts sufficiently [for absolute sustainability]”. The authors claim that the earth’s carrying capacity has to be taken into consideration for absolute environmental sustainability. This leads to an “emission/impact budget” which has to be allocated to an anthropogenic system or process (Bjørn et al. 2020). In the case of already exceeded planetary boundaries, the emissions budget of an anthropogenic (or socio-technical) system needs to be negative, which implies the need or justification of positive impacts for ecological resilience. This requires a careful definition of the multi-system boundary between anthropogenic and natural systems (Hauschild et al. 2020). For the definition of a positive impact, it is crucial to understand its direction (i.e., what is the “sending” and the “receiving” system?). Furthermore, the quality of a potential positive impact depends upon the specific circumstances within the receiving system (Bull and Brownlie 2017). The occurrence of various and somewhat fragmented approaches regarding socio-technical system characteristics, system design principles and system management functions shows the need to derive a holistic and more general understanding of this subject.

Structure of the paper

The paper is structured in accordance with the Integrated Framework for Life Cycle Engineering (Hauschild et al. 2017), which provides a multi-layered understanding of socio-technical systems in an absolute sustainability context. The framework is applied in a top-down manner, so that absolute sustainability defines the overall goal on a global level, and positive impact concepts for sustainable development represent the link to the socio-technical system. On the socio-technical system level, relevant system design principles and management functions are analyzed to bring together the existing knowledge in the field. This leads to the following structure of the paper: A section on the "State of knowledge: positive impact concepts for sustainable development" provides a brief development of sustainability concepts and presents conceptual dimensions of related sustainability approaches. This is necessary to define general characteristics of positive impact concepts, which are used as the literature selection criteria to identify relevant publications for the subsequent literature analysis. The next section "Socio-technical system design principles and management functions for positive impacts" provides a structured overview of current publications on positive impacts and identifies system design principles for positive impacts on biodiversity, society and economy. The literature samples are furthermore evaluated concerning management functions to operate socio-technical systems in a positive manner. A section on “Synthesis” synthesizes the identified aspects in a guiding framework on positive impacts of socio-technical systems for absolute sustainability, and provides a proposal for a general definition, and points out further research in the field. The final section “Outlook: potential implications and research demand” discusses potential applications and further research demands.

State of knowledge: positive impact concepts for sustainable development

Positive impact concepts build on the insight that absolute sustainability requires additional efforts to reduce pressure on exceeded planetary boundaries and to enhance human wellbeing in accordance with the UN SDGs. Therefore, sustainable development should focus on “human prosperity and equity within a safe biosphere” (Randers et al. 2018) to provide a transformational pathway for socio-economic processes. The evolution of the perception of sustainable development in the context of the earth’s carrying capacity has emerged in the early 1990s through population growth, changing lifestyles and environmental impacts to the living conditions of future generations (Daily and Ehrlich 1992). The growing concern about unsustainable resource consumption and increasing deterioration of natural ecosystems has led to the question of what level of impact is acceptable to ensure a necessary viability of ecological life support functions (Daily and Ehrlich 1992). Eco-effectiveness approaches aim at integrating “impact thinking” to the conceptualization of socio-technical approaches or socio-ecologic systems (Figge and Hahn 2004) beyond eco-efficiency (WBCSD 2000) and have gained popularity for instance with the presentation of the “Cradle-to-Cradle” concept in 1998 (Braungart et al. 2007). In terms of sustainability, the cross-influences of social and ecologic systems require a “resilience thinking”, which demands a re-adjustment of socio-technical systems to ecologic limits (Folke et al. 2010). This should be reflected as the recognition of planetary boundaries in global politics (Dryzek and Stevenson 2011) and business concepts (Whiteman et al. 2013) to ensure a sufficient and equitable life on a global scale (O’Neill et al. 2014). Within the past decade, the concept of “Planetary Boundaries” (Rockström et al. 2009), which defines nine ecological boundaries as crucial for the life support system for humankind, has strongly influenced the debate on sustainable development. Therefore, the protection of earth’s life support system is ultimately a concept of “guiding human behavior and protecting human interests” (Biermann 2012). Various studies have detailed the general concept of the earth’s carrying capacity with investigations on human health questions (Whitmee et al. 2015), agricultural practices (Reganold and Wachter 2016), nitrogen management (Zhang et al. 2015), decision-making processes (Guerry et al. 2015), global vulnerability due to forest dieback and tree-mortality (Allen et al. 2015) or sustainable business models (Adams et al. 2016). However, social and economic aspects need to be considered to achieve sustainable development (Giovannoni and Fabietti 2013). This can cause challenges in an actual socio-technical system analysis due to trade-offs between global and local sustainability issues and uncertainties due to differences in the indicator definition (Thies et al. 2019). The concept of “Doughnut Economics” (Raworth 2017) aims at integrating the nine planetary boundaries with 12 dimensions of social standards (based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals). It describes a blueprint for a “safe and just space for humanity”, which can be considered a socio-economic approach for absolute sustainability. This concept claims a regenerative, circular and integrative design of socio-technical systems to mitigate ecological overshoots and social shortfalls. Within the past years, the concept has gained much attention and it can be interpreted as an attempt for a positive impact on a global scale “to enable humanity to thrive in the safe and just space” (Raworth 2012).

The term “positive impact” is common to various disciplines without yet being specified and defined. Cole and Kashkooli (2013) provide a definition for Net Energy Positive Building of a building that “generates more energy than it uses over time”. McEvoy (2004) presents a definition for Positive Impact Forestry based on “forest management within the context of a long-term plan of objectives that are [at] once economically expedient but conserving of resources, and socially, environmentally and ecologically responsible”. Rainey et al. (2015) describe Net Positive Impact (NPI) on biodiversity as “where the gain exceeds the loss”. Rahimifard et al. (2018) define Net Positive Manufacturing as “to put back more into society and environment than what they take out”. In many cases, an ongoing debate concerning a clear definition is recognizable. Dyllick and Rost (2017) highlight a constant adjustment of definitions for corporate sustainability in the changing context of contemporary perception of sustainability and sustainable development. Di Cesare et al. (2018) argue that—for positive impacts in social assessments—aspects such as value judgements, ethical beliefs or chosen analytical perspectives interfere with the development of a clear definition. Joustra and Yeh (2014) provide a simplified definition for Net-Positive Building Water Cycle and discuss subsequently its limitations in the context of system boundaries and life cycle considerations. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants’ (ACCA) Global Forum for Sustainability notes that “a generally accepted definition does not exist at present, and the topics and timeframes addressed by the various corporate initiatives tend to vary” (ACCA 2014). This is as well noted by Di Cesare et al. (2018) who state that “positive impacts are barely covered in literature. There is a clear need of streamlining [a] definition and indicators, especially if they should be applied in a policy context”. The occurrence of various approaches and definitions for positive conceptualizations of socio-technical systems (and related business models) shows the need to identify relevant and determining characteristics of positive impacts.

To cluster various concepts, approaches and strategies for sustainability, we build on the distinction by Lankoski (2016) and propose a structure as visualized in Table 1. It consists of three conceptual dimensions (scope, hierarchy and impact), providing an indication about the underlying characteristics of sustainable business models. Scope comprehends the question whether a concept is based on a narrow (only ecological) or broad (ecological, social and economic) understanding of sustainability. Hierarchy describes whether a concept recognizes the planet’s carrying capacity as a foundation for a conceptual structure. Impact describes the type of effect that the concept aims at: negative (reduction or improvement), neutral (consistency or zero impact) or positive (safe and just space for humanity).

Table 1 Conceptual dimensions of sustainability approaches
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In essence, a conceptualization for absolute sustainability expresses the most ambitious combination of the three dimensions. It requires a broad scope for an integration of all sustainability dimensions, a clear hierarchy to reflect the carrying capacity orientation and positive impacts. A positive socio-technical system configuration integrates the generation of sustainable values as a principle of its system design and behavior. It can be understood as the interplay of a distinctive system design and effective system management as described, e.g., by Aiama et al. (2015) in the context of mining operations and nature conservation.

Socio-technical system design principles and management functions for positive impacts

Motivations to design socio-technical systems for positive impact

The motivation and goals of developing positive impact concepts for socio-technical systems are manifold and often rooted in a critical reflection of a human-nature relationship. Dyllick and Rost (2017) describe the necessity to generate overcompensation for ecological restoration and sustainability. Birkeland (2018) emphasizes that “development must instead reverse the global rates of degradation and inequity […] by increasing the ‘natural’ environment”. Cole and Kashkooli (2013) refer to a partnered relation between human society and natural systems, which builds social and natural capital instead of diminishing it. Alshehhi et al. (2018) discuss a balance between cooperative financial, environmental and social performance in the context of fulfilling expectations of societal and ecological stakeholders. In finance, Wendt (2018) postulates the necessity for humankind to live within the ecological carrying constraints and to re-conceptualize all major systems through an internalization of all externalities. This is supported by Scheel (2016) who claims that solutions “must be able to recover environmental resilience and, at the same time, create economic returns, as well as shared social benefits for the communities”. The Forum of the Future (2014) proposes that “Net Positive approaches can ensure results across the value chain and have real positive impacts on communities and the biosphere”. Birkeland and Knight-Lenihan (2016) consider urban infrastructure as an enabler for positive sustainability solutions, as eco-positive design can effectively create restorative synergies between human and natural systems. Rahimifard et al. (2018) urge businesses to implement a “restoring, self-healing, and regenerative” approach to generate a “Net-Positive Manufacturing” impact. They claim that reductionism is “too small and too slow to tackle the needs of tomorrow”.

Selected literature

For assessing the relevance of and raising attention to the research subject of “positive impact”, an analysis of publications was conducted with the database Scopus. Title, abstract and keywords of records published in the time between 1980 until 2018 were searched for the phrase “positive impact”. The results show a steady rise in scientific publications relating to the concept of positive impact accelerating from the early 2000s. The growth of records per year from less than 30 in the year 1980 to more than 5000 in 2018 illustrates the attention positive impact received in the recent decades. Subsequently, based on several keyword searches (“positive impact”, “net gain”, “net-positive”) in various scientific databases (Scopus, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar), more than 20,000 publications were identified and supplemented by publications from a further research of internet sources. In a multi-step analysis, the literature was skimmed and sorted by an abstract and title analysis. This led to a sample of 524 publications from scientific databases and 129 publications from grey and Internet sources. Hence, the total of 653 publications were critically assessed concerning the description and presentation of a positive impact. In this step, publications that showed either a relative or neutral impact or an impact outside of the scope of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were excluded. This full-text analysis was conducted in a critical manner, which explains that roughly about 10% of the previously selected literature was chosen for an in-depth analysis. 62 records were finally selected for the detailed evaluation and a mapping to the UN SDGs, as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2
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Literature analysis on positive impact and mapping to the UN SDGs (n = 62)

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A significant number of publications in the context of absolute sustainability can be related to SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy), SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 9 (industry, innovation and infrastructure), SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) and UN SDG 15 (life on land). The remaining SDGs show fewer relationships with the assessed literature. This shows that current descriptions of positive impacts are resource-focused (e.g., water or energy), relate to innovation of industrial systems, target the improvement of human livelihoods, or aim at increasing the quality of ecosystems.

Identification of socio-technical system design principles for positive impact

The following in-depth analysis of the final literature sample was focused on extracting system design principles for positive impact and identifying prerequisites for a desired system management for positive impacts, ultimately leading to an overview of current descriptions on positive impacts. The identified positive impacts are structured according to the 17 UN SDGs and are explained in more detail in the section “Biosphere-related system design principles for positive impact” (biosphere-related), in the section “Society-related system design principles for positive impact” (society-related) and in the section “Economy-related system design principles for positive impact” (economy-related).

Biosphere-related system design principles for positive impact

Biosphere-related positive impacts show a clear orientation towards water (UN SDG 6), climate change (UN SDG 13) or biodiversity (UN SDG 14 & 15). Table 2 summarizes the identified biosphere-related design principles that were presented in the literature sample.

Table 2 Identified biosphere-related system design principles for positive impact
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Biodiversity integration focuses on the inclusion of ecological impacts in the overall impact assessment of industrial activities (Aiama et al. 2015) to support ecological development and create a net gain in biodiversity. Positive impacts on biodiversity are presented in various business cases, in which biodiversity-related activities are integrated into project development plans or corporate strategies in the mining, chemical, energy and manufacturing industry (Rainey et al. 2015). The International Union on Conservation and Nature (IUCN) defines a net-positive impact on biodiversity (see Temple et al. 2012; Aiama et al. 2015) must be beyond offsetting, equivalent in the ecological value and permanent to ensure a net gain (Bull and Brownlie 2017), and could be supported by ecosystem valuation (NPI 2015a, b). Biodiversity-related positive impacts often show a connection to local communities (Rainey et al. 2015). Macfadyen et al. (2019) and Shrestha et al. (2018) describe positive ecological impacts of the fishing industry and aquaculture through changes in operational practices and community integration.

Circular water resources describe the use and supply of harvested rainwater and recycling water for an internal purpose and an external system (Joustra and Yeh 2014) with the aim of reducing the overall freshwater use. Positive impacts are generated through various approaches, as for instance water treatment of mining operations with the aim of strengthening biodiversity through environmentally-integrated industrial activities (Olsen 2011), water positive buildings that enable a positive water balance through rainwater harvesting (Joustra and Yeh 2014), or water conservation as a requirement in agriculture sustainability standards (Tayleur et al. 2017). Li (2016) describes a water management concept as part of a social design policy for reasonable water consumption and the prevention of flooding on courtyard level in Beijing. The ACCA (2014) presents a corporate water management strategy with the aim of providing equal sharing of resources between industry and communities. The integration of water use in product life cycles can generate positive impacts on sustainability, if closed loop approaches are realized (Adams et al. 2016), if symbiotic resource flows among industries and municipalities are established (Geng et al. 2010), or if water footprints are integrated in product performance indicators (Grönman et al. 2019).

Renewable energy generation and supply encompasses the generation and supply of solar energy for internal and external demand to avoid the use of fossil fuels in a greater systemic context (Herrmann et al. 2015). Positive impacts for climate change mitigation can be found in the formulation of sustainable business models [see Krajnc and Glavič (2005), Bocken et al. (2014), Forum of the Future (2014), Adams et al. (2016), Costantini et al. (2017), Baumgartner and Rauter (2017)], in which carbon neutrality is defined as a pre-condition for sustainable entrepreneurship. Birkeland (2018) describes architectural and building design approaches, which integrate the exclusive use of renewable energy as a design requirement. Herrmann et al. (2015) present a concept of a positive impact factory that produces more renewable energy than needed with a surplus supply for the local community. The carbon handprinting perspective assesses the positive climate impacts of products and business approaches (Grönman et al. 2019), while the Societe General (2017) focuses on the assessment of positive climate impacts in present sustainable finance schemes.

Circular material use and supply claims a circular and symbiotic resource utilization and provision within the industrial sector (Rahimifard et al. 2018) to avoid demands of “virgin” materials and minimize related greenhouse gas emissions (and toxic materials). Attia (2016) presents a concept of regenerative architecture with circular building materials. The same principle is applied in the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) eco-design concept of Braungart et al. (2007), which aims at the extensive utilization of solar energy. Zapico et al. (2010) present an approach to measure “accurate real-time metabolism accounting” through information technology to support industrial ecology.

Society-related system design principles for positive impact

Positive impacts for social sustainability often target the various society-related SDGs (UN SDGs 1–5, 7, 11, 16, 17). Table 3 summarizes the identified society-related design principles for socio-technical systems.

Table 3 Identified society-related system design principles for positive impact
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Social integration refers to the integration of stakeholder needs in business processes (Aiama et al. 2015). The incorporation of community support through social business approaches is explained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in the context of biodiversity integration in project planning and development policies (Aiama et al. 2015). Positive impacts for social sustainability are often described as an integrative element of an economic activity of an organization [see Krajnc and Glavič (2005), Bocken et al. (2014), Adams et al. (2016), Dyllick and Rost (2017)]. Laurin and Fantazy (2017) describe the case of IKEA, which aims at integrating stakeholders along the supply chain and at defining a global standard of working and living conditions for employees. Galpin and Lee Whittington (2012) describe the integration of social sustainability aspects and social values as a competitive market advantage for companies and lay out examples of how organizations measure their social performance.

Stakeholder networks describe the formalized organization of a social integration to systematically identify needs of and evaluate impacts on stakeholders (Laurin and Fantazy 2017). Forum of the Future (2014) outlines net-positive principles for businesses which include the integration of affected communities, public engagement, wider partnerships, networks, and supply chains. Baumgartner and Rauter (2017) propose life cycle thinking and the evaluation of first- and second-level impacts for the development of a sustainable organization. Indrane et al. (2018) summarize the existing definitions for positive social impacts, which are characterized through a “net positive effect of an activity on a community”, “add/provide value to stakeholders” and “tailored interventions that have resulted in positive outcomes”. Positive social impacts occur through stakeholder integration in decision-making processes and access to economic revenues. This can be facilitated by, e.g., income distribution in local energy deployment (del Río and Burguillo 2009), public value generation of sustainable products (Dyllick and Rost 2017) or income growth of households through appropriate policies (Smith and Haddad 2015). From a methodological perspective, the evaluation of positive social impacts is crucial and could be measured through different approaches: the application of Social-LCA indicators (Indrane et al. 2018), applying a stakeholder perspective (Ekener 2018) or by evaluating Social Impact Assessment (SIA) indicators for project appraisal (Mareddy 2017).

Access to socio-economic processes encompasses the enabled accessibility to economic, social and physical resources to improve living conditions and the income of households (Societe General 2017). The Société General aims at generating access to water, energy, education, health and job creation (Société General 2017). Bocken et al. (2014) describe employee welfare and living wages, community development through education, health and provision of livelihoods and sustainable agricultural practices with minimal water consumption and chemical utilization as elements of programs for sustainable business models. Mareddy (2017) discusses direct poverty alleviation through better access to employment and business opportunities, increased accessibility to and from a community and funding of social infrastructure. Herrmann et al. (2015) describe the vision of implementing positive health effects for workers (“factory as a fitness studio”), capacity sharing for learning and knowledge provision for residents and customers as well as provision of recreational spaces as positive social impacts of factories. Li (2016) provides an example of how integrative water management can strengthen cultural identity and reinforce communities (and their wellbeing) in the case of Beijing. Mathew and Sreejesh (2017) provide evidence that responsible tourism in India can generate community sustainability and wellbeing through increasing incomes (and linked poverty reduction), improved access to information and market opportunities.

Provision of financial resources represents the directed supply of financial resources (Wendt 2018) to reduce poverty or stimulate development. Wendt (2018) describes investment approaches (microfinance, lending and crowdfunding) for a directed monetary resource allocation to support poor and developing populations. The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEPFI) has published principles to finance the 17 SDGs. The overall aim of the initiative is to provide a framework that ensures transparency and measurability of a sustainability impact (UNEPFI 2017). The framework is applied by financial institutions, such as Société General, within their UN SDG-related project assessments (Societe General 2017).

Economy-related system design principles for positive impact

Positive impacts on economy-related UN SDGs (UN SDG 8–10, 12) often originate from business approaches or concepts that are linked with environmental and social aspects. Table 4 summarizes the identified economy-related design principles for socio-technical systems.

Table 4 Identified economy-related system design principles for positive impact
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Sustainable value generation refers to the generation of long-term value through linking economic activities to absolute social and environmental goals (Bocken et al. 2014). McEvoy (2004) describes long-term economic revenues besides environmental gains and community wellbeing through responsible forestry or stewardship. Hunt (2017) proclaims an enhancement of a firm’s financial performance through improved corporate social performance. This is supported by Simpson and Kohers (2002), who provide a positive example from the banking sector. Van Rekom et al. (2014) depict that the communication of social activities leads to customer loyalty and stakeholder satisfaction. Costantini et al. (2017) show that eco-innovations and sustainable supply chains both contribute to sectoral ecological sustainability and economic performance.

Sustainable business models describe the organizational mission that connect sustainable value generation with innovative product design for absolute sustainability. Bocken et al. (2014) identify and discuss various types of sustainable business archetypes for sustainable value proposition. A sustainability-oriented organization can generate new types of products, operational practices and activities, and contribute to social and ecological services or value (Adams et al. 2016). Rahimifard and Trollman (2017) describe this business attitude as “to put back more into society and the environment than what they take out”.

Synergetic networks describe economic structures that generate a mutual benefit for all partners (Hunt 2017). Synergetic networks for the exchange of resources are considered to generate positive economic impacts in many cases [see Geng et al. (2010), Eckelman and Chertow (2013), Forum of the Future (2014), Adams et al. (2016), Wendt (2018)]. Hunt (2017) describes economic opportunities through symbiotic mutualism of organizations. Symbiotic structures and circular economy implementation can generate new forms of material utilizations through waste valuing, material cascading, sharing of infrastructure, joint venture creation (Prieto-Sandoval et al. 2018) or circular value ecosystems (Scheel 2016).

Innovation for absolute sustainability encompasses the inventive development of new products and service systems that aim at generating sustainable value (Adams et al. 2016). Adams et al. (2016), who propose new forms of innovation and define this approach as “Systems Builder”, in which a business organization fosters the creation of sustainable systems, provide solutions for a greater societal purpose (e.g., shared value) and mobilize partners for a transformative change. Dyllick and Rost (2017), who refer to a shift from “inside-out” towards “outside-in” thinking, integrate socio-ecological needs at the basis of business innovation and operations. This implies that absolute sustainability targets represent premises for product development processes.

Identification of socio-technical system management functions for positive impact

The socio-technical system design defines the architecture of a system, its structural alignment in environmental, social, and economic networks, as well as the type and amount of processed resources. A continuous steering of the system behavior is required to fulfil the purpose of generating positive impacts. The integrated management model by Bleicher (1999) (“St. Galler management model”) provides a holistic and integrative management approach for this purpose by integrating information of its complex external environment into internal decision-making processes. Integrated management in general aims at identifying relevant internal as well as external information and knowledge to enable a long-term viability of the socio-technical system in accordance with its overall purpose (Herrmann 2010). Therefore, the integrated management model is considered an important analytical framework to identify relevant management functions to enable positive impacts of socio-technical systems (in a greater systemic context). An integrated management requires the definition of normative, strategic and operative management functions (see Section “Normative, strategic and operative management of socio-technical systems for positive impact”) as well as required structures, behavior and activities (see Section “Structures, behavior and activities of socio-technical systems for positive impact”).

Normative, strategic and operative management of socio-technical systems for positive impact

Three management layers of Bleicher’s (1999) integrated management model distinguish between normative, strategic and operative management functions. Various concepts and approaches are identified in the literature review, summarized in Table 5, and documented in Online Appendix 1.

Table 5 Identified management functions for positive impact of socio-technical systems
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Normative management encompasses general norms, values and guiding procedures. Only a few studies so far discuss normative models for positive impacts. Normative management for positive impact is explained by Niesten et al. (2017) with a hybrid governance model and by Costantini et al. (2017) with collaborative governance mechanisms that enable a wider system boundary including the supply chain. The corporate culture should be related to values (Laurin and Fantazy 2017), ethical principles (Baumgartner and Rauter 2017), and a code of conduct for sustainability (Reuter et al. 2012). The definition of policies or business models and a mission for positive impact complements the normative functions. Bocken et al. (2014) propose several conceptualizations of technology-, society-, and organization-oriented models as well as related approaches for value proposition, creation, delivery and capture.

Strategic management functions for positive impact are addressed by various studies. Baumgartner and Rauter (2017) highlight a strategic management system for identifying relevant strategic sustainable issues. Forum of the Future (2014) defines strategic principles to align an organization with net-positive overall targets. Sustainability-oriented innovation (Adams et al. 2016) and learning processes [see Adams et al. (2016), Scheel (2016), Dyllick and Rost (2017) and Niesten et al. (2017)] define strategic behavior. The connection of normative principles with operative processes represents the key task for the strategic management. Baumgartner and Rauter (2017) explain in detail how strategic sustainability programs can fulfil this complex task for sustainability outcomes. Forum of the Future (2014) furthermore lays out how strategic sustainability targets for positive impact can be formulated.

Operative management functions comprehend operations and executions to enable positive impacts. Notions to managing and evaluating the supply chain sustainably are manifold [see Bocken et al. (2014), Scheel (2016) and Laurin and Fantazy (2017)] as the supply chain needs to be integrated into the system boundary to enable positive impacts. Adaptation management (Adams et al. 2016) and intersectional management (Baumgartner and Rauter 2017) are identified as important functions to react to changing circumstances and to integrate stakeholder knowledge in decision-making processes. To execute operations towards positive impacts, a life cycle-oriented coordination of activities is needed (Herrmann 2010).

Structures, behavior and activities of socio-technical systems for positive impact

Structures, behavior and activities are organizational requirements or preconditions that support the integrated management of a socio-technical system. In the context of systems that generate positive impacts, the literature review provides concepts and approaches, which are summarized in Table 6 and documented in Online Appendix 1.

Table 6 Identified structures, behavior and activities for the management of socio-technical systems for positive impact
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Structures enable organizational behavior and activities and, therefore, represent a necessary pre-condition for a desired socio-technical system performance (Herrmann 2010). Collaborative structures are described by Hunt (2017) as a pre-condition to enable symbiotic and mutual relationships with external systems. Niesten et al. (2017) identify inter-firm collaboration as a necessary governance structure for positive impacts. This leads to three different network types: resource networks (see Geng et al. 2010, Eckelman and Chertow 2013), social networks (see Simpson and Kohers 2002, Adams et al. 2016, Baumgartner and Rauter 2017, Laurin and Fantazy 2017) and economic networks (Bocken et al. 2014). Scheel (2016) adds that a systemic perspective on macro-level is required. The socio-technical performance needs to be evaluated, whereas different evaluation systems represent identified operative structures. These evaluation systems and their processes should focus on the environment [see Eckelman and Chertow (2013), Attia (2016), Dyllick and Rost (2017), Grönman et al. (2019)], stakeholder [see Rainey et al. (2015), Laurin and Fantazy (2017), Mareddy (2017), Di Cesare et al. (2018)] and supply chain (Laurin and Fantazy 2017).

Behavior-related aspects are identified to support the three management layers for an intended behavior of people within the socio-technical system. Normative behavior concepts comprehend globally accepted and unified ethics (Horton 2014), values for corporate sustainable management (Baumgartner and Rauter 2017), as well as a code of conduct for sustainability (Reuter et al. 2012). Strategic behavior is characterized through various types of innovation [see Adams et al. (2016), Forum of the Future (2014), Laurin and Fantazy (2017), Scheel (2016), Bocken et al. (2014)] and learning behavior (Adams et al. 2016) to develop sustainability knowledge and solutions. Operative behavior is characterized though adaptation (Rahimifard and Trollman 2017) to apply sustainability knowledge and impact thinking.

Activities describe required systemic actions that are necessary to pursue positive impacts. On a normative level, Bocken et al. (2014) highlight the functioning of sustainable business models through detailed technological, social and organizational principles. Galpin and Lee Whittington (2012) add the approach of a citizenship model that could serve as a blueprint for a positive organizational performance. The integration of environment and society in strategic actions lead to the definition of sustainability goals. The facilitation of the strategic program connects the strategic goals with the operative activities (Baumgartner and Rauter 2017) to contribute to the organizational mission as stated in the business model (Bocken et al. 2014). On an operative level, positive impacts result from the execution of life cycle-oriented activities (Herrmann et al. 2015), whereas a sustainable value is generated in a greater ecological and/or societal context.

Synthesis

The analysis of publications on positive impacts for sustainable development detected several system design principles (Section “Identification of socio-technical system design principles for positive impact”) and management functions (Section “Identification of socio-technical system management functions for positive impact”). These were utilized for the development of a guiding framework to explain the generation of positive impacts from a socio-technical system perspective and the derivation of a definition for “positive impact of socio-technical systems”. The following definition is proposed:

A positive impact reduces pressure on planetary boundaries, increases human wellbeing and/or generates sustainable value. In socio-technical systems, positive impacts result from combining sustainability-related system design principles with an integrated system management and support sustainable development for absolute sustainability in a wider system boundary. This requires a structural alignment in resource-, stakeholder- and circular value-networks and a continuous development through innovation, learning and adaptation.

This definition is based on a cooperative understanding of positive and net-positive concepts and it explains industrial preconditions. It can be applied in business, planning, design or engineering contexts to support projects or developments with an absolute sustainability target. The guiding framework shown in Fig. 3 consists of three steps and should be considered as a first proposal for consolidation of the fragmented and specific knowledge on positive impacts. It summarizes the identified knowledge, and provides an overview about systemic preconditions and organizational processes to generate positive impacts.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Guiding framework for positive impacts of socio-technical systems

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First, the socio-technical system design should be based on the identified principles, which can be considered as general premises for system planning and development stages. Biosphere-related system design principles claim a regenerative and circular energy, water and material use as well as supply of external systems. Society-related design principles focus on the social integration of stakeholders and their needs into the system design. This can be facilitated via stakeholder networks, the provision of access to employment, health and education services or financial resources. Economy-related system design principles encompass the generation of sustainable values in synergetic networks. This requires a sustainable business model as well as a continuous innovation of the socio-technical system to create products and services (as a system output) that fit to the goal of absolute sustainability and a changing external environment. Five general system design principles can be derived: (1) networks, (2) regeneration, (3) circularity, (4) integration, and (5) sustainable value generation.

Second, an integrated system management is required to steer the socio-technical system purposely towards the generation of positive impacts. On a normative level, organizational prerequisites are defined. This includes a sustainable business model, the corporate culture for sustainability as well as a governance mechanism for sustainability. Governance should be facilitated collaboratively in a wider system boundary. This enables a life cycle-oriented system management, which integrates economic partners, and stakeholders as well as the pre- and post-supply chain. Strategic management connects the normative management with operative processes through establishing a strategic management program for sustainability, strategic principles and innovation and learning processes. Being evaluated against strategic goals for sustainability, the strategic management develops socio-technical solutions to fulfil the organizational mission in a continuously changing external environment. The operative management coordinates life cycle-oriented activities of the system including supply chain evaluation as well as adaptation and intersection management. The integrated management is supported by structures (resource, social and mutual economic networks), which should be considered as the outcome of the system planning processes. The system behavior is determined by the stakeholders that organize, control and steer the system. Therefore, the normative behavior concepts for absolute sustainability (values, ethics and a code of conduct) determine also innovation potential, learning and adaptation processes. Activities result from an interplay of existing socio-technical structures and intended behavior of people (within the system) and—ultimately—to the execution of life cycle-oriented activities for the desired system output.

Third, the generation of positive impacts represents consequently a result of socio-technical planning and integrated system management. Positive impacts on the biosphere reduce pressure on the planetary boundaries through a net gain in biodiversity, reduced freshwater uses and avoided greenhouse gas or toxic emissions in external systems. Therefore, positive ecological impacts are either based on the principles of (1) conservation and restoration (of ecosystems and natural habitats) or (2) substitution and avoidance (of resource uses or harmful emissions in external systems). Positive social impacts increase human wellbeing by public value generation, addition of value to stakeholders, community development and the reduction of poverty. Two principles are detected: (1) the integration of stakeholder needs and (2) the provision of access to social services and economic processes. Positive economic impacts increase economic growth and offer long-term economic revenues and performances through the establishment of sustainable product and service systems.

Outlook: potential implications and research demand

“Positive impact” is a contemporary concept with a growing significance. Various specific descriptions or visionary guiding principles exist, although a comprehensive definition and guidelines for incorporating positive impact thinking in organizations is yet missing. Therefore, an overview about the current topic was established to condense the fragmented knowledge and derive a more general understanding. This has been achieved by establishing a guiding framework that contains identified system design principles and management functions to steer socio-technical systems to positive impacts. The identified system design principles can support, e.g., system designers and engineers in planning processes as premises for the development of absolute sustainable systems. The principles enable the evaluation of the effectiveness of development processes. Thus, they could function as conceptual targets or general requirements in systems engineering (INCOSE 2006), socio-technical system innovation (Gaziulusoy 2015), system transformation (Geels 2018) or system collaboration (Adams et al. 2016) processes. The identified management functions can support an effective system management and serve as a blueprint for a cohesive and holistic system control and steering. The application of the framework could support socio-economic organizations that aim at generating sustainable value over their life cycle (Bocken et al. 2014). If the integrated management functions are applied in organizations to establish an “internalization of externalities” (Wendt 2018), they would allow and facilitate necessary management processes in a structured and systematic manner to achieve sustainable outcomes. Therefore, the synthesis of the results from Section “Identification of socio-technical system design principles for positive impact” (system design principles) and Sect. Identification of socio-technical system management functions for positive impact (integrated management functions) from the literature into the guiding framework is considered a novel insight for the development of absolute sustainable systems.

However, methodological challenges arise from the multi-systemic nature of the subject. The integration of a safe and just space for humanity into the socio-technical system design raises questions on allocation of remaining “impact budgets” (see Bjørn et al. 2020). This requires a careful calculation of a sustainable natural resource use and a thorough understanding of social wellbeing along the supply chain. Here, the definition of a sufficiently wide scope is crucial. Therefore, a clear and conscious definition of a multi-system boundary is essential and requires more research. This might as well have an influence on the formulation of sustainable design strategies for system innovation (see Ceschin and Gaziulusoy 2016). It is important to note that socio-technical systems with positive impacts will in reality co-exist with neutral or negative impacting systems. The resulting interaction needs to be considered in design and operation stages, but can provide a motivation and/or justification for generating a positive impact. Therefore, sustainable design strategies need to reflect the above-mentioned methodological challenges, develop solutions to integrate “positive impact thinking” systematically and provide guidance concerning system boundary definitions. New business models (see Bocken et al. 2014) could provide incentives for positive system transformations and raise the question on measuring sustainable values from an economic perspective. This might be a crucial question within strategic and organizational decision-making processes. In summary, future research should focus on method development to evaluate positive impacts, design strategies (e.g., “design for positive impact”) and positive business models for sustainable value generation.

Conclusion

This study has analyzed the term “positive impact” in the context of absolute sustainability of socio-technical systems and evaluated in detail 62 selected publications concerning their descriptions of positive impacts. More than half of the assessed studies were published within the past 5 years, which shows the rising relevance of the subject. The in-depth literature analysis identified (general) socio-technical system design principles as well as normative, strategic and operative management functions leading to a definition of “positive impact”. Several characteristics of positive impacts on biosphere, society and economy were detected. The developed guiding framework explains systemic preconditions and required organizational processes to reduce pressure on planetary boundaries, increase human wellbeing and generate sustainable value.