Several authors claim that we currently live in an era of change, because the existing
model is not sustainable. Collaboration among different parties (government, citizens and
companies) to create other values besides economic is essential to evolve into the direction of
new sustainable models. This transition faces some barriers including the established
traditions, rules and laws and the existing methods to evaluate firms’ performance, which
only consider financial performance. Therefore, this research aims to contribute to theoretical
developments of the concept of creating shared value by empirically advance in the
understanding of how different actors interact to create value. By interviewing four Dutch and
three Portuguese initiatives on solar energy, the ultimate goal is to answer the following
questions: What are the values, which actors are involved and how does their relation look
like in the creation of solar energy initiatives; and how do these values, relations and number
of actors evolve over time and across-countries? The findings show how important it is for
cooperatives to involve different actors in their networks and their constant pursuit to balance
social and economic value. Additionally, closeness, trust and informal structures seem to be
essential to enable the process of creating shared value.