Purpose: Companies and their business networks impact on Earth's life and ecosystems must be seriously addressed and minimized. The purpose of this paper therefore proposes and describes a generic model as well as a network model of business sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach: "Business sustainability" is defined as a company's or an organization's efforts to manage its impact on Earth's life- and eco-systems and its whole business network. The work concentrates on one research question, namely: how can business sustainability and E-footprints be conceptualised?

Findings: The model introduced emphasises not only the importance of business networks adopting an E-footprint and an Earth-to-Earth (EE) cradle-to-cradle approach, but also a transformative Earth (E) footprint-model derived and inspired from a causal framework in complexity sciences. Research limitations/implications: Research is rare that simultaneously focuses on EE-approaches, E-footprint stakeholders and zero-sum cycles. The authors have striven to address this gap by introducing a business sustainability model in an EE-approach and with an interconnecting transformative E-footprint-model.

Practical implications: It is crucial to embed appropriate routines and processes within the company in the first instance with the aim of business sustainability. This may cause a ripple effect in the company's business network as raw material producers, value-adding suppliers and customers become drawn into make appropriate strategic, tactical and operative adaptations in their own business dealings. This stresses the importance of E-footprint stakeholders fostering networks of both interdependent and collaborative corporate efforts aimed at business sustainability.

Originality/value: The main contribution should be a business sustainability model of life and ecosystems from an EE-approach with a transformative E-footprint.model. Each company within a business network must endeavour to minimise its E-footprint through its zero-sum cycles. These should be seen as interdependent and interconnected thereby contributing to the total E-footprint of the business network. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.