ABSTRACT
Integrated product policy is based on a set of principles. One of these is the principle of shared responsibility. Responsibility has to be shared among different political and economic actors, such as companies, consumers, retailers, financial institutions, trade associations and non-governmental organisations. This calls for the integration of different actors and stakeholders, resulting in multi-stakeholder approaches to innovation processes. This chapter focuses on product management, with a particular emphasis on the role of companies. Within product development processes, the innovating company is the crucial actor. The chapter reviews the potentials and possible obstacles to participatory approaches in environmental innovation processes in general, and also focuses on user participation in product development in particular. A combination of different knowledge bases is reached through the involvement of consumers in product development. Different scholars have studied the conditions under which the participation of consumers in product development is useful.
