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.
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