Brief description
Rising population growth and limited resources make sustainable innovation essential. However, due to stricter regulatory frameworks and increasing demands from consumers and investors regarding sustainability, companies must also be innovative to ensure their economic sustainability. Sustainable development, however, is only possible through far-reaching and comprehensive innovations at the societal level. Incremental innovations are not enough; radical and system-changing innovations are needed. New technologies play a particularly important role here, e.g., blockchain and AI.
To innovate such sustainability solutions, companies can pursue an open innovation approach and involve suppliers, customers, NGOs, other companies or competitors, and other stakeholders. This enables them to gain new knowledge, legitimacy, and the critical mass required for large-scale innovations. It is important to align innovations with the so-called “Triple Bottom Line” (TBL), the triad of business, environment, and society—and to avoid unintended harm early on, such as through rebound effects.
In our research, we focus in particular on the innovation process with regard to the integration of sustainability. Some of the questions we ask ourselves include:
Who are the stakeholders relevant to sustainability in the innovation process?
What roles do these stakeholders play?
What requirements must innovations meet to be considered sustainable?
What methods and tools can be used to incorporate sustainability into the innovation process?
How can an open innovation approach be implemented?
In the SmartHaPSSS project, we investigate how sustainability can be integrated into the innovation process of smart product-service systems early on to generate value for the TBL and avoid negative impacts. In the Sustainability-oriented Innovations along the Supply Chain project, we are researching the role of NGO collaborations in the development of innovations within the supply chain. In the CODIFeY project, an open innovation platform was established, and innovations for electromobility were developed in collaboration with the community.