Sustainability Innovation in Business

Sustainability innovators create new products and services designed to solve problems created by the collision of economic growth, population growth, and natural systems. Read this chapter on the changing conditions for business and how sustainable innovation concepts can be applied to deliver goods and services to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous global community.

What is the definition of sustainability innovation? How do sustainability design criteria differ from conventional business approaches?

Energy and Materials: New Challenges in the First Decade of the Twenty-first Century and Limits to the Conventional Growth Model

Exercises

  1. Propose an idea for a product that has sustainability concepts designed from the outset. How does this change your thinking about resources you might use? How might it change processes of decision making within the firm and across supply chains?
  2. What key elements characterize the standard model of business? What barriers can you list that would need to be overcome to move a mainstream business to a sustainability view?