The agricultural sector has a critical role in creating social and environmental value of natural resources in addition to its traditional role of creating economic value by supplying food to the ever-increasing world population. In fulfilling this dual role, the agricultural sector often faces competing pressures: to operate financially profitable businesses and to create, maintain, and benefit from ecosystem services (ES) in their operations. This paper analyses these pressures in an examination of drivers and barriers to the initiation of the business model innovation process for sustainability (BMIpfS) as perceived by ten agricultural business managers who operate farms in southern Sweden. The paper explores the interplay between managerial cognition and business decisions as revealed in semi-structured interviews. The new ES in focus connect to radical land-use change, paludiculture, as used in the rewetting of farmland intended to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that drained peat soil causes. The paper contributes to the literature by identifying drivers and barriers that moderates the initiation of the BMIpfS. Although the managers acknowledge the importance of long-term, sustainable social, and environmental value creation, they have grave doubts about the profitability of activities associated with the preservation of peat soils and connected ES. These managers would benefit from taking a more proactive, long-term approach to business model changes for sustainability and from acquiring more knowledge about market demand for sustainability-oriented ES. Successful facilitation and implementation of knowledge transfer and government subsidies that support ES could improve the turning of profits based on sustainable value creation.

Efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are receiving increased attention among governmental and commercial actors. In recent years, the interest in paludiculture, i.e. the use of rewetted peatlands, has grown because of its potential to reduce GHG emissions by stopping soil decomposition. Moreover, cultivating wetland plants on rewetted peatlands for  bioenergy production that replaces fossil fuels in the transport sector, can contribute to additional GHG emission reductions. In this study, an analysis of literature data was conducted to obtain data on GHG emissions (CO2 and CH4) and biomass production from rewetted peatlands cultivated with two different wetland plant species: Phragmites australis (Pa) and Typha latifolia (Tl). In  addition, a  biogas experiment was carried out to investigate the biomethane yield of Pa and Tl biomass, and the reduction of global warming potential (GWP) by using biomethane as vehicle fuel. The results show that peatland rewetting can be an important measure to mitigate the GWP as it reduces GHG emissions from the soil, particularly on a 100-year timescale but also to some extent on a 20-year timescale. More specifically, rewetting of 1 km2 of peatland can result in  a  GWP reduction corresponding to  the  emissions from ±2600 average sized petrol cars annually. Growing Pa on rewetted peatlands reduces soil GHG emissions more than growing Tl, but Pa and Tl produced similar amounts of biomass and biomethane per land area. Our study concludes that Pa, because of a more pronounced GWP reduction, is the most suitable wetland plant to cultivate after peatland rewetting. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Phragmites australis, Typha latifolia, T. angustifolia and Arundo donax are tall wetland graminoids with the potential to replace fossil fuels under sustainable cultivation conditions. We investigated the biomethane (CH₄) production of these four species, including four different genotypes of P. australis, which represent the high intraspecific diversity of European reed. All plants were grown under three different macronutrient supplies (no nutrients added, an equivalent of 75 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ added and an equivalent of 500 kg N ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ added). Biomethane production was measured in four independent batch digestion tests. Across all experiments, fertilization regime had little effect on CH₄ yield, which was on average 222 ± 31 L kg⁻¹ volatile solids (VS). The lowest yield was produced by T. angustifolia (140 L kg_VS⁻¹) receiving no nutrients, while the highest yield was produced by A. donax (305 L kg_VS⁻¹) in the highest nutrient treatment. The intraspecific diversity of P. australis did not affect biomethane production. All P. australis genotypes produced on average 226 ± 19 L CH₄ kg_VS⁻¹, which, although high, was still lower than conventional biogas species. The biomass production of P. australis was less increased by fertilization than that of Typha sp. and A. donax, but all species had similar biomass without fertilization.