ABSTRACT
Innovation cuts through paradoxes. It is the creation of solutions to conflicting demands. Flying in a vacuum gave us rockets and satellites; switching electrons through insulators gave us Silicon Valley and the digital age. Sustainable development presents a similar field of paradoxical innovation forces-provide affordable products and services for the growing unmet needs of the world population while reducing environmental impacts. This is what eco-efficiency is about, an approach defined by the WBCSD in the early 1990s (WBCSD 2000a). The designer Craig Frazier once said: ‘Discomfort is almost a prerequisite for a great idea’ (Frazier 1998).
