Obtaining social acceptance is crucial for bringing new renewable energy infrastructures to life. Social acceptance literature identifies many factors that individually influence social acceptance of renewable energy projects. It shows that it is not possible to generalize what works for one project for others making it difficult for firms to know what they can do to increase the likelihood that they gain social acceptance. This article proposes to develop a framework that firms can use when they want to design what we call a business model for social acceptance (BMfSA). We do that by reviewing social acceptance literature in order to identify factors that contribute to the social acceptance of renewable energy project. We then classify these factors according to whether they shape the antecedent of business model design or whether they inform about the process through which business models for social acceptance should be designed. This paper contributes to business model literature by showing how firms can systematically integrate the interest of indirect stakeholders in the design of their business model in order to obtain social acceptance.
