The article summarises the state of knowledge in the field of factors affecting sustainable business models of enterprises, with particular emphasis on non-financial factors, ESG (environmental, social, governance) and innovation. Research results published in over 72 articles were analysed. The article uses meta-analysis, the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator method and logistic regression in order to analyse the results of the research in an international context (Asia, America, Africa, Europe), and finally focuses on an in-depth analysis of the experiences of European countries. We found that innovations affect sustainable business models in an unambiguously positive way generally for every country. In addition, there is moderately strong evidence that cultivating social capital affects sustainable business models in a positive way. The limitation and challenge of this study was to include environmental, social and governance factors in the analysis, in particular their standardization and categorization. The applied research approach and methodology allowed these difficulties to be overcome.