ABSTRACT

HOW SUSTAINABLE IS INNOVATION?  Problematically, most contemporary patterns of innovation in human social systems and organisations are not sustainable. This prevents people from learning effectively, from recognising and solving their problems, and from operating in sustainable ways. It is arguably why societies, businesses and industries around the world are so unsustainable.  Sustainable innovation is a pattern of social learning and problem-solving that is, itself, sustainable. The sustainability of innovation, moreover, is linked to the sustainability of its outcomes, which manifest themselves in what people produce and do in the world. Sustainable innovation, then, is a necessary precondition for sustainability in how societies and organisations function – the ways they organise, the products and services they make, the energy and resources they use, and the wastes they produce.  As challenges such as demographic pressures, ethnic tensions, terrorism, global poverty, pandemics and abrupt climate change force their way into mainstream politics and business, so we see growing interest in innovation, entrepreneurial solutions and, critically, issues such as how to ensure successful solutions replicate and scale. Sustainable Innovation aims to illustrate that shift. Instead of simply focusing on environmental and technological matters, it views and evaluates innovation-for-sustainability in terms of the human, social and management challenges and responses.  It argues that a just, efficient and sustainable balancing of these elements is best achieved by the development of new knowledge, and by the evolution of better means both of embedding that emerging knowledge in organisations and institutions, and of managing the relevant flows of information, knowledge and wisdom. The book stresses that claims that a particular product, production process or service are sustainable usually assume that an appropriate balance has been achieved between people, planet and profit. However, calculating the sustainability of such things, let alone of complex systems such as enterprises or economies, can be impossible. Instead of "sustainability", the book favours the use of terms such as "making sustainable", emphasising that in dynamic operating environments organisational processes are changing constantly, whether or not they are under effective strategic control by management. Innovation, too, is dynamic by definition. Sustainable Innovation argues that there must be a constant focus on the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental value creation during the innovation process.  Sustainable innovation is a new challenge for organisations. It is a process that should permeate the whole organisation, in terms of its members, its tasks, its coordination mechanisms and its procedures. Waste or pollution should not be seen as the reason for further intervention downstream, but as an end-of-the-pipe effect, which could be organisationally cured upstream. Developed from the Dutch research programme "Knowledge Creation for Sustainable Innovation", this book presents empirical research and cases to develop a theory of sustainable innovation that is based on management of knowledge, knowledge and cognition and innovation approaches.  Sustainable Innovation suggests that knowledge and innovation will be the key drivers of social and corporate sustainability in the years ahead. It will be essential reading for managers and researchers in areas such as sustainability, innovation, knowledge management and organisational learning.

part A|96 pages

Sustainable innovation: the organisational, human and knowledge dimension

chapter 1|13 pages

Knowledge creation for sustainable innovation

The KCSI Programme

chapter 2|13 pages

Innovation

Many-Headed And Certainly Important

chapter 3|14 pages

Sustainability

From Environment and Technology to People and Organisations

chapter 5|17 pages

Organisation

Artefact and Principle

chapter 6|23 pages

Knowledge as a basis for innovation

Management and Creation

part B|37 pages

Instruments and models

part C|151 pages

The organisational (business) projects

chapter 10|12 pages

Biosoil

Sustainable Remediation

chapter 12|22 pages

Know what you're blending!

A Tool for a Sustainable Paper Industry

chapter 15|20 pages

Sustainability of knowledge within mental healthcare

Knowledge Infrastructure, Knowledge Management and Learning

chapter 16|12 pages

The University Medical Centre Groningen

Sustainable Innovation in Postgraduate Medical Education: a Knowledge and Learning Approach

chapter 17|16 pages

Grontmij

Co-Operation in the Light of Sustainability

chapter 18|11 pages

Sociocracy and the sustainability of knowledge

Reekx, Atol and Endenburg Elektrotechnics

part D|59 pages

Theory and practice: results from the organisational projects

chapter 19|10 pages

The focus of innovation

What have we Established?

chapter 20|5 pages

Business (organisational) practices

Recurring Themes of Sustainability

chapter 21|8 pages

Business practice

Recurring Themes in and Around Knowledge

chapter 23|25 pages

Assessing and determining social sustainability

An Onset and an Attempt