Examining the Nexus between Ubuntu Philosophy and Green Business Models: Insights from the SADC Region

Abstract

The discussion in this article is an analysis of the Ubuntu philosophy and green business models discourse in Southern African Development Community (SADC). Although Western-founded theoretical approaches have dominated sustainability studies, there has been little focus on how the local African philosophies can be used to support sustainable business practices in the environment. The article integrates interdisciplinary data based on Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of peer-reviewed articles on the subject of Ubuntu relational, communal and intergenerational ethics and modern green business model innovation. It investigated forty-seven carefully selected studies found with the help of PRISMA 2020 guidelines but representing a variety of SADC countries and industries. These results indicate that Ubuntu values (interconnectedness, collective responsibility, participatory decision-making and cyclical temporality) and the most important aspects of green business models (stakeholder inclusiveness, systems thinking, regenerative value creation and long-term sustainability orientation) have a high degree of theoretical proximity. Agricultural, mining, financial, tourism and manufacturing evidence all reveal that Ubuntu-inspired interventions may lead to increased confidence between stakeholders, a sense of ownership of an initiative by the community, better environmental performance and increased financial stability. These models produced quantifiable gains in various settings such as a decrease in environmental incidents (EIs), higher loan repayment rates, retention of farmers and productivity of cooperatives. The review also establishes the implementation issues, including institutional mismatch, scaling, cultural appropriation risks and limited resources in rural areas. Further, a number of knowledge gaps remain, such as comparative research between the Ubuntu-informed systems and more traditional sustainability models, lack of longitudinal evidence and a lack of gender-specific study on leadership, participation and benefit-sharing relationships. In terms of theory, the proposed study has a contribution by incorporating a combination of stakeholder theory, systems thinking and an institutional approach to make a context-specific framework that explains the role of these indigenous philosophies in making a sustainable enterprise in emerging markets. It claims that Ubuntu is more than a normative ethical prism; it is a means of potential green business model creation as a strategic reaction to the complexity of institutions and the lack of resources. In terms of practicality, the results provide substantive advice to managers, policymakers and educators in favour of culturally authentic and locally entrenched means to sustainability development approaches in the SADC region. The article ends with a research agenda in the future presenting a plan to develop empirical validation and comparative evaluation of Ubuntu-informed sustainability models.