Reflections from leading an SDG- and sustainability-lens Business Model session at KSR Engineering College during Marabanu’s FoundR Sprint 1.0.
I was invited to conduct a workshop on the Business Model Canvas through a UN SDG lens and a sustainability lens at KSR Engineering College, as part of Marabanu’s FoundR Sprint 1.0.
There were about 40 participants in the room. Nearly 26–27 active startups. The brief was simple: help founders look at their business models differently. I did not begin with the SDGs.
I began with 2004.
2004: Before ‘Impact’ Became a Keyword
My entry into this space did not come through policy documents or pitch decks. It came through Psychology and Social Work.
- Remote villages. Tribal belts. Urban slums. Hospitals with patients dealing with cancer and Neurodegenerative disorders from chemical exposure and unsafe labour.
- Industrial clusters like Sivakasi where risk is normalised.
- Communities locked into generational poverty and cultural slavery
- Caste hierarchies that quietly determine access and affordability to basic resources
- Religious and social discrimination that shapes mobility.
- Systems where people have almost zero agency to alter their trajectory or fates.
I spoke about documentary visits.
- About witnessing how certain industries permanently damage workers.
- About generational entrapment — poverty giving birth to poverty, untreated conditions repeating across generations, children inheriting constraint before they inherit opportunity.
Because before we discuss ‘impact business models,’ we must understand what impact looks like on the ground.
Systems create outcomes. And businesses are part of systems.
Entrepreneurship Is Not Neutral
When you start a business, something shifts.
You gain autonomy.
You begin thinking regionally, nationally, and internationally. This shift happens especially once supply chains, imports, and exports enter the picture. Regulatory compliance, tenders, and vendor networks also become important factors.
You are no longer just earning. You are deciding.
You decide hiring. You decide procurement. You decide which supplier survives. You decide which community benefits. You decide what standards are non-negotiable.
That is structural power. Not political power. Not dramatic power. Structural power — the ability to influence how resources move.
Most founders underestimate this. They think they are ‘just building’. They are not. They are shaping incentive structures.
Externalities: The Invisible Shadow of Every Business
In the session, I emphasised a simple truth:
Every business creates externalities (positive or negative), intentionally or unintentionally.
- An agri-tech startup may improve yield but increase groundwater stress.
- A med-tech platform may improve access but generate biomedical waste.
- An AI company may optimise efficiency but consume enormous energy — and potentially build tools that can be used defensively or offensively in military or surveillance contexts.
No business is neutral.
The real question is whether founders understand their second- and third-order effects.
- Are you creating dignified livelihoods? Or extractive ones?
- Are your operations harming land, water, or surrounding communities?
- Are you dependent on fossil systems without a transition plan?
- Are you embedding unconscious biases into hiring or leadership?
- Are you creating generational harm through unsafe practices?
Externalities are not moral lectures. They are strategic variables.
From Business Model Canvas to Sustainability Lens
Earlier in the day, participants were taught the traditional Business Model Canvas.
It asks:
- What is your value proposition?
- Who are your customers?
- How do you make money?
- What are your key partners?
- What is your cost structure?
It teaches viability.
I asked them to stretch it.
To re-examine every block through a sustainability and UN SDG lens:
- Are your partners sustainable?
- What happens at end-of-life?
- What regulatory exposure exists?
- What hidden resource dependencies exist?
- What positive impact can you maximise?
- What negative impact must you minimise?
- Can sustainability create pricing power instead of just compliance cost?
Impact is a structural design. Embedding sustainability early is inexpensive. Retrofitting it at scale is expensive — sometimes fatal.
The Participatory Moment
This was not a lecture. I made each startup stand up. I asked them:
- Which UN SDGs does your business address?
- Is that alignment intentional or accidental?
- Can you address additional goals as you scale?
- Can you expand impact without collapsing commercial viability?
Some had never thought about it. Some realised they were contributing without naming it. Some saw blind spots. That awareness shift was the point.
Why This Matters Now
We are operating in a world shaped by wars and trade aggression. Economic coercion impacts us. Silent forms of imperialism through capital and supply chains also have an influence.
Markets dictate livelihoods. Entrepreneurs shape markets. If you are building, you are already participating in system design. The only question is whether you are conscious of it.
Entrepreneurship is agency.
And agency, when unexamined, reproduces systems. When examined, it can redesign them.
That was the workshop. Not a motivational talk on SDGs. A confrontation with structural power.
Design responsibly.
Scale intelligently.
Create durable value.