Construction is the single biggest industry in the developed world, at around 13% of Gross Domestic Product, with the greatest environmental impact. There are approximately 190 million buildings in Europe and most of them were built before energy efficiency was a common issue in construction. Accelerating the market uptake of Energy Efficient Buildings (EEB) projects is crucial and that is where innovative business models can play a major role. They can support the needed change by reorganising firms’ internal structure and offers, overcoming certain barriers to EEB uptake and aligning with the new business opportunities brought by the need for sustainable and energy efficient buildings. In the frame of the UMBRELLA project, a Europe-wide stakeholders’ engagement was undertaken to analyse their understanding of the business model concept and their motivation for energy efficiency, and to determine how to overcome the building value chain fragmentation. This paper relies on concepts of sustainable and energy efficient transition pathways to address how innovative business models can boost the energy efficient market. It highlights how the co-evolution of business models with both the wider energy system and the natural environment is responsible for the need of both innovative and sustainable business models, which are necessary for ensuring a long-lasting change in the energy efficient building market. The innovative and sustainable characteristics of four business models are presented, according to criteria of functional and product-service system thinking. The analysis of these elements will allow for further replication and adaptation of these promising models.