Increasingly, companies’ attempts to become more sustainable are framed in terms of transitioning towards sustainable business models (SBMs), whereby central logic of how the company offers value to customers is challenged (Yang & Evans, 2019). This transition requires companies to rethink the way value and resource consumption are coupled in their operations (Pieroni et al., 2019), as well as consider different ways of connecting with customer needs (Laukkanen & Tura, 2020).

Professional sport leagues are both commercial products and public products. As China’s sports leagues transition from state-governed properties to a more commercial model, professional sports are facing a crucial turning point on balancing stakeholders pertaining to its commercial/market value and social value. How to develop a sustainable business and management model of professional sports teams, fitting Chinese culture and the calls on free economy, has become a major challenge to scholars, practitioners and entrepreneurs in China’s sport industry. Every organisation has its relationships with many groups ("stakeholders") that affect and are affected by its decisions, which are dynamic in a constantly changing world. Stakeholder theory was developed through concerns regarding the nature of these relationships in terms of both processes and outcomes for both organisation and stakeholders, and the changing nature of the environment.

Green crowdfunding – fundraising for green initiatives – has become a growing source of alternative finance for sustainable entrepreneurs. The current paper explores the business model of green crowdfunding from three perspectives, i.e. funders, founders and platform. We pay special attention to how green crowdfunding extends consumers‘ involvement in sustainable economy.