Rationale and AimsāWhy This Book, Why Now?
Grand challenges such as climate change , economic and social inequality , as well as resource scarcity are increasingly recognized across the policy, business and academic domains (Ferraro et al. 2015). Scientists have described that we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, by which the impacts that human development have caused on Earth systems are putting our resilience at risk (Steffen et al. 2011). In this regard, nine āplanetary boundaries ā (Rocktrƶm et al. 2009) are highlighted: climate change , rate of biodiversity loss, interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, stratospheric ozone depletion, ocean acidification, global freshwater use, land use change, chemical pollution and atmospheric aerosol loading. This analysis has been integrated in international studies such as the latest Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change report (IPCC 2018a) that shows the pressing need to limit global warming.
Indeed, the most pressing issue of all is the climate change , because it is intertwined with several other sustainability issues . The IPCC (2018a) is clear on the ever more pressing need to tackle climate change to curb further devastating effects, including reduced crop yields, increasing sea levels, coral bleaching, extreme weather events, increased water stresses and droughts, slower economic growth and more people living in poverty. In order to limit global warming as per the Paris Climate Agreements, policy and business action need to be accelerated and ambitions need to be raised (IPCC 2018a). āLimiting global warming to 1.5 Ā°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of societyā, according to IPCC Chair Lee (IPCC 2018b: 1).
More broadly, the key sustainability challenges have been formalized in 17 sustainable development goals (SDG), developed from the Millennium Goals, including challenges around climate action , clean water and sanitation, zero hunger and reducing inequality . They were adopted by the UN in 2015 calling for new collaborative solutions by governments, businesses, researchers and civil society organizations (George et al. 2016). These grand challenges may be viewed as āthe biggest business opportunity of our timesā, as suggested by Porter and Kramer (2011). Resolving such challenges requires major innovation efforts, at the level of individual products and services, but also more broadly at the level of business models and social innovations , and major system-level transitions (Adams et al. 2016).
This edited collectionā Innovation for Sustainability āseeks to highlight important opportunities and challenges for business in this regard.
While these themes are tremendously important, they are certainly not new. In fact, there are many books and thousands of journal articles written at the intersection of business and sustainability (Bansal and Song 2017). Also, the recognized need to tackle climate change is not new, but the evidence base is now ever more paramount, showing the pressing needs for business and policy to take action (IPCC 2018a, b). As a response, there are increasing numbers of academic contributions discussing the need for sustainability-oriented innovation (e.g. Adams et al. 2016; Hansen et al. 2009) and sustainable business model innovation (e.g. Stubbs and Cocklin 2008; Boons and LĆ¼deke-Freund 2013). However, with this progress the field has grown exponentially leading to divergence in the views and the conceptualizations used.
To bridge this gap, our edited collection incorporates contributions in the intersection of innovation and sustainability literature, representing a diversity of approaches in business, management and engineering. We also include cross-disciplinary approaches embedding, for example, political research, system analysis and experimental research. In doing so, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the opportunities and challenges related to innovation for sustainability . Combining work from both emerging and established scholars, this book examines the topic from four perspectives: (1) Systemic approach (2) Strategy and leadership , (3) Measurement and assessment, and (4) Tools, methods and technologies. These are preluded by short practitioner perspectives to introduce the four perspectives.
Furthermore, this book aims to be āsolutions-drivenā, providing both academically sound but also practically applicable insights for fostering sustainable innovation needed to tackle pressing sustainability issues . As a whole, the compilation of chapters provides a reflective as well as a critical understanding of the challenges that need to be solved. Thus, from a business perspective the book provides multiple insights on how to approach innovation for sustainability , but without one predefined ārecipeā. Rather, it gives a critical insight on different aspects of Innovation for Sustainability .
Overall, this book aims to be a key resource for Master students, Ph.D. students and MBAs, but also scholars, practitioners and decision-makers wanting to gain essential knowledge about the field of innovation for sustainability .
Defining Innovation for Sustainability
This book pursues to push forward the convergence in the disciplinary traditions of innovation management and sustainable business. While these fields have partly developed separately, we see the pursuit of positive environmental and social goals as innate to any innovation process. As such, this suggests that a separate field of Innovation for Sustainability would not be necessa...