Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL INNOVATION AND SOCIETAL TRANSITIONS
Volume 24, Issue -, Pages 94-105Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2016.10.007
Keywords
Innovation management; Manufacturing; Interface; Case study; Sustainabilitya
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Funding
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [EP/G037612/1]
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [1076054] Funding Source: researchfish
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Innovation is critical to business. Sustainability is a global challenge requiring innovation. Many organizations have publicly committed to innovate towards environmental, social and economic sustainability, but a behaviour gap remains. In order to promote the effectiveness of these endeavours, there is a pressing need to understand the conditions for successful innovation towards sustainability, backed by empirical evidence. This paper complements prior work by developing a definition of sustainability-oriented innovation (building upon definitions of eco-innovation), and by discussing observations of this activity in practice. The paper presents an account of sustainability-oriented innovation at Interface, a global manufacturing company with radical sustainability goals. It expounds the contexts in which these innovations arose, focusing in particular on Net-Works, a radical, socially-minded fishing-net recycling programme. It was found that several unique factors contributed to success: adopting an existing route to market, partnering with an NGO, and learning from mistakes in a safe failure space. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
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