In the recent past, environmental innovations have led to a considerable reduction of many pollutants; however, further innovation is required to tackle remaining pollution sources. This work analyses the significance and the effects of framework conditions on innovation activities that contribute to the realisation of a sustainable development. The book links the experiences of different research projects with the aim to develop a system of indicators to evaluate sustainable effects of (environmental) innovations. A comprehensive framework for an indicator system is established that allows to include different environmental innovation fields such as process innovations in the steel production, substitution of dangerous chemicals, organisational innovations in the field of waste disposal or sustainable water management.

Currently the writing on the subject is limited and comprises, for the most part, guidance documents and completed assessments.

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.

This book informs and educates readers about sustainable development management, approaches and applications in manufacturing processes and presents the trends to the next economic and social paradigm: the Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0. Educational aspects, case studies from various companies, together with the analysis and synthesis of the literature and empirical experiences, define the content of the eleven chapters. Thus, this material could be considered as a starting point and foundation for researchers and practitioners interested in the present state and the evolution of the manufacturing systems. The book offers various points of view regarding the actual digital transformation of the manufacturing system.

This book is an insightful text looking at sustainable innovation and the emerging fourth sector, i.e. hybrid organizations, through an interdisciplinary approach. The book illuminates what hybrid organizations are and how they generate new ways of creating blended value to secure the well-being of future generations and preservation of ecological services. The book also discusses how sustainable innovation may offer creative solutions to societal issues, the sharing economy and the circular economy. This book will appeal to those taking MBA and EMBA programmes, and those with an interest in creating sustainable business and innovation solutions.

The Handbook of Sustainable Innovation maps the multiple lineages of research and understanding that constitute academic work on how technological change relates to sustainable practices of production and consumption. Leading academics contribute by mapping the general evolution of this academic field, our understanding of sustainable innovation at the firm, user, and systems level, the governance of sustainable innovation, and the methodological approaches used. The Handbook explores the distinctiveness of sustainable innovation and concludes with suggestions for generating future research avenues that exploit the current diversity of work while seeking increased systemic insight.

Globalization and telecoupling are enhancing the complexity of the coupled socio-ecological system constituted by the interaction between the global ecosphere and the anthroposphere. As a result, the demand for tools to identify transformative innovations, assess future risks, and support precautionary decisions for sustainability is growing by the day in business and politics. Scenarios are a means of simplification, reducing the real-world complexity to a limited number of essential factors to analyze their interactions and support policy formulation, with indicators as communication and monitoring tools. In particular, in a time of “fake news” and “alternative truths” a critical reflection amongst producers and users of scenarios and indicators is overdue—the capability for critical self-reflection is what distinguishes science from pseudo-science, and is a condition of trust. The authors of this book test established measurement and modeling approaches against new challenges, assess the weaknesses of prevailing innovation theories and the political-ideological embedment of archetypical scenarios, highlight deficits in taking the physical basics into account, and the need to understand global interaction and the stepwise process of energy transitions, point out technical as well as conceptual weaknesses in data collection, harmonization and indicator generation, always with a view to solving problems.