Sven Pastoors, Ulrich Scholz, Joachim H. Becker, Rob van Dun Towards Sustainable Innovation About the contributors Sven Pastoors is Lecturer in International Law and Sustainable Innovation at the Department of International Marketing, Fontys International Business School, Venlo. In addition, he works as freelance lecturer for the Team Europe of the Eu- ropean Commission and the German Bundestag. He is member of the advisory board of the Crossing Borders research group at FIBS Venlo. Ulrich Scholz is Senior Lecturer in International Marketing and Management at the Department of International Marketing, Fontys International Business School Venlo, for nearly 20 years. He has published a number of articles and books on sustainable innovation and customer relation management. Joachim H. Becker is Lecturer in Communication and Human Resource Man- agement at the Department of International Marketing, Fontys International Business School Venlo, for more than 15 years. Additional focal points of his work are organisational psychology and personal coaching. Rob van Dun is Lecturer in Economics and Sustainable Innovation at the De- partment of International Business and Management Studies, Fontys Interna- tional Business School Venlo. His additional fields of expertise are international business strategies, international management, business consulting and cross- cultural differences. Sven Pastoors, Ulrich Scholz, Joachim H. Becker, Rob van Dun Towards Sustainable Innovation A five step approach to sustainable change Tectum Verlag Sven Pastoors, Ulrich Scholz, Joachim H. Becker, Rob van Dun Towards Sustainable Innovation. A five step approach to sustainable change © Tectum – ein Verlag in der Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 2017 ISBN: 978-3-8288-6655-3 (Dieser Titel ist zugleich als gedrucktes Buch unter der ISBN 978-3-8288-3903-8 im Tectum Verlag erschienen.) Umschlagabbildung: Fotolia.com © Robert Kneschke Umschlaggestaltung: Norman Rinkenberger Tectum Verlag Alle Rechte vorbehalten Besuchen Sie uns im Internet www.tectum-verlag.de Bibliografische Informationen der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Angaben sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar. 1 Table of contents Introduction 5 Chapter 1: Introduction to the concept of sustainability 13 1.1 The concept of sustainability 14 1.2 Problem statement 17 1.3 Social-economic effects making sustainable acting difficult 22 1.4 Different ways to measure the sustainability of a product 28 1.5 Eco-efficiency vs. Eco-effectiveness 31 Chapter 2: Corporate Sustainability 39 2.1 An introduction to corporate sustainability 41 2.2 The Emergence of Sustainability in Business 42 2.3 Moving from Obligation to Opportunity 46 2.4 The Triple Bottom Line Framework 47 2.5 Sustainable Innovation: Challenges and Opportunities 53 Chapter 3: What is innovation? 59 3.1 The term innovation 60 3.2 Types of Innovation 62 3.3 The (closed) innovation process 64 3.4 The open innovation process 67 2 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation Chapter 4: Systematic Innovation 75 4.1 Introduction to systematic innovation 76 4.2 Concept of Systematic Innovation 78 4.3 Internal Sources for Innovation 79 4.4 External Sources for Innovation 93 Chapter 5: Entrepreneurial Management 101 5.1 The significance of entrepreneurial management 102 5.2 Managing an existing firm 103 5.3 Managing Start-ups 115 Chapter 6: Innovation Strategies 127 6.1 The significance of innovation strategies 128 6.2 Going All-In (“Being fustest with the mostest”) 129 6.3 Hit them where they ain’t 130 6.4 Finding a Niche 134 6.5 Disruptive Innovation 134 Chapter 7: Fostering Innovation 143 7.1 Innovation is Change 144 7.2 Required capabilities to innovate successfully 146 Chapter 8: The Birth of the iPod 155 Chapter 9: Identification of sustainability issues 167 9.1 Creative problem solving 168 9.2 The creative problem solving process 169 9.3 Questioning techniques to identify a problem 175 9.4 Analytical techniques to identify a problem 177 9.5 Techniques to visualize a problem 184 3 Chapter 10: Introduction to customer insight 191 10.1 Customer insight 192 10.2 Incorporation of Customer Insight in the Market Research Process 194 10.3 Taking advantage of the customer knowledge 199 10.4 The phase concept of customer insight 204 Chapter 11: Ideation 211 11.1 Ideation and creativity techniques 212 11.2 Creative-Intuitive Methods 214 11.3 Analytical-Systematic Methods 222 11.4 What should be used when? 225 11.5 Sustainable innovation workshops 226 Chapter 12: Idea evaluation 231 12.1 Pre-Selection of ideas 232 12.2 Decision-making methods 235 12.3 Evaluation of ideas 240 Chapter 13: Social and environmental management 243 13.1 Quality management: Product and process aspects 244 13.2 Social Responsibility 246 13.3 Ecological Management 249 13.4 Life cycle assessment 252 Chapter 14: Cradle to Cradle 259 14.1 Cradle to Cradle as the new philosophy of sustainable innovation 260 14.2 The four golden rules of Cradle to Cradle 262 14.3 Certification of the Cradle-to-Cradle principle 268 4 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation Chapter 15: Introduction to green marketing 271 15.1 Generation of the term green marketing 272 15.2 Sustainable marketing and Green marketing 274 15.3 Strategic green marketing 276 15.4 The “LOHAS” segment 283 15.5 Green marketing and sustainable innovation 285 References 291 Books 291 Abstracts 296 Official Documents 299 Internet resources: 300 Glossary 305 5 IntroductIon Sven Pastoors Summary This chapter provides a brief outline of the subject and the book’s content. The terms sustainability and innovation should not be considered separately, not only when talking about sustainable in- novation. They are closely linked to one another. The main goal of sustainable innovations is to develop new products and technolo- gies that have a positive impact on the company’s triple-bottom- line. Thus, they have to be ecologically and economically benefi- cial as well as socially balanced. Thereby, they are strengthening a company ́s market position. In doing so, companies focus their ac- tivities on the one hand on technological and innovative develop- ments and, on the other hand on the wishes, expectations and prob- lems of their customers. Nevertheless, almost half of all the research and development work results in products, which will never reach the market. Companies spend a large amount of time and money on developing new prod- ucts, based on both their experience and knowledge of the market. Yet, they often find it difficult to understand that their products and 6 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation their applications need to be adapted to customer needs. They fail because their products are designed in an excessively complicated manner or are not developed to meet the requirements of the cus- tomers. This book aims to help companies to generate sustainable innova- tions successfully. In doing so, the structure of the book is based on six possible phases of a sustainable innovation process: Aware- ness, Problem identification, Ideation, Incubation, Implementation and marketing. Sustainability and innovation “ We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. ” (Albert Einstein) The terms sustainability and innovation should not be consid- ered separately. They are closely interlinked with one another. The main goal of sustainable innovations 1 is to develop new products and technologies that have a positive impact on the company’s tri- ple-bottom-line. Thus, they have to be ecologically and economical- ly beneficial as well as socially balanced. Thereby, they are strength- ening a company ́s market position. In doing so, companies focus their marketing activities on the one hand on technological and in- novative developments and, on the other hand on the wishes, expec- tations and problems of their customers. Basically, three different starting positions are possible: • There are already other existing products, which might solve an existing problem. By means of market research it is investigated 1 Sustainable innovation couples the protection of natural systems with the notion of business innovation while delivering essential goods and serv- ices that serve social goals of human health, equity, and environmental justice. 7 Introduction whether and how the existing customer requirements and prob- lems can be solved better, easier or less expensively with the aid of new approaches (continuous improvement process). • There is no alternative available on the market yet: the market does not indicate a need, but there possibly is a desire. In this case, customer problems are checked and evaluated whether those could be solved by applying the new technology. and how a demand for the product could be generated (real innovation). • All solutions to an existing problem are very expensive and cen- tralized (e.g. when main frame computers solved math equa- tions or obtaining medical care at an hospital). Therefore, the solution is only accessible for a relatively small number of cus- tomers. There is a need to make this technology far more acces- sible and affordable (disruptive innovation). The market technology dilemma describes the contrast between re- quirements and wishes of customers on the one hand, and the tech- nological possibilities on the other. Not everything customers want is technically possible or morally desirable. As a consequence, new technological developments must first be adapted to the wishes of the customers or new needs must be created. This is particularly true when it comes to innovations. A mere six per cent of all new products manage to become permanently established on the market (Vahs/Burmeister 2005, p. 25). Almost half of all the research and development work results in products, which will never reach the market. Companies spend a large amount of time and money developing new products, based on both their experience and knowledge of the market. Yet, they often find it difficult to understand that their products and their applica- tions need to be adapted to customer needs. They fail because their products are designed in an excessively complicated manner or are not developed to meet the requirements of the customers. This is es- 8 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation pecially the case for high-tech innovations, as the innovators deem to believe that more sophistication equals more value for their cus- tomers, whereas this typically is not the case. Contrarily to popular believe, innovation is not carried out by genius scientists in a lab that have breakthrough ideas that change the world, but is rather percep- tive, requiring the innovator to understand the problems of the cus- tomers, the ways to reach the market and an idea of what value tru- ly is for its users. The success of a product is strongly dependent on the willingness of the users/customers to provide information. Companies learn what is wanted and required directly from their end-customers and local retailers. This information should subsequently be incorporated into the product development. Therefore, companies and customers must look to the future togeth- er in order to find out which problems should be solved. In doing so, they need to take into consideration that all customers are different and that each one of them has specific requirements. However, they are all connected by the desire to solve their problems with the aid of new technologies. This not only means that products should be developed to be more focused on the customer, but also that high- quality technical products should be developed flexibly in order to be able to fulfil a wide range of customer wishes. Innovations and new product ideas should be communicated to the market at an early stage, as the customer initially should be con- vinced of the value of the new products. Customers do not buy inno- vative products merely because they are new. Novelty alone is not a selling point. The majority of customers are rather critical regarding new technologies. The balance is quite delicate, as products or serv- ices should not be considered to be too radically different so that po- tential customers don’t see its uses, whilst they should provide more utility than previous alternatives. In the first place, the potential buy- er should be made aware of the crucial advantages of the respective 9 Introduction product. Thus, it is important to increase the range of use of new products in order to create acceptance as early as possible. Therefore, right from the start, marketing activities should receive equal con- sideration within the development process. Furthermore, innova- tions should be communicated in a stronger value-oriented manner. Structure of this book This book consists of two major parts. The first section (chapter 1-8) comprises eight chapters which cover all basic information relating to sustainable innovation. First of all, the need for sustainable inno- vation and the concept of sustainability are explained in the initial two chapters (chapter 1 Sustainability and chapter 2 Corporate sus- tainability). Sustainability describes the ability of a community, or- ganisation or a company to operate in such a way that they also have the capacity to endure into the future. This applies not only for eve- ry individual and every company, but also for humanity as a whole. On the long run, the global community cannot live at the expense of future generations. This also includes individual communities not being allowed to consume in such a way that they burden people in other regions of the world. In the following two chapters the process of innovation and creation of sustainable products is demonstrated (chapter 3 Innovation and chapter 4 Systematic Innovation). These chapters focus on entrepre- neurial management and innovation strategies. Besides a fitting strategy companies need an appropriate culture and suitable systems in order to innovate successfully. Innovation re- quires internal change, or the willingness of a firm to do so. Compa- nies that want or need to innovate, need to foster innovation. That means to nurture or cherish innovation within the business environ- ment. Finally, the first part of the book is completed by a case study about the invention of the IPod. 10 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation In the second part of the book (chapter 9-15) the five-step-approach towards sustainable innovation will be explained. This process starts with creating awareness for a specific sustainable challenge. Rela- tively often, problems have had an impact for some time before they are recognised or brought to the attention of someone who can do something about them. When a company becomes aware of a prob- lem it often has no idea what it is about and how to solve it. As there is no answer to the problem yet, a creative solution has to be found. When a person encounters a problem, the natural tendency is to immediately propose possible solutions. Consequently, the thought and discussion focuses on the merits and problems of proposed solution(s), rather than an in-depth discussion of possible causes of the problem itself. Thus, in chapter 9 different techniques how to de- fine a problem will be introduced. One important step to understand a problem is the identifica- tion and definition of the customers’ needs and wishes (chapter 10 Customer Insights). After a company identified and understood the problem, a solution has to be found. One way to do so is creative problem solving. The term problem solving describes the process of working through the details of a problem in order to reach a solution for each kind of problem, including sustainability issues. Besides logical or system- atic thinking, problem solving may require creative skills. Thus, the following chapters focuses on the generation of new ideas, which are needed to create new products and services (chapter 11 Ideation), and the selection of the best ideas to solve the problem (chapter 12 Idea evaluation). The improvement of the new ideas or products takes place via qual- ity and environmental management (chapter 13) 2 , or through new approaches, such as Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C/chapter 14). C2C is an 2 The starting point environmental management is the critical examina- tion of the life cycle assessment (LCA), an analysis of the environmental impact of products throughout the entire lifecycle. 11 Introduction innovative, positive and integral approach to sustainability, which is not based on reduction, but rather on unlimited reuse of raw mate- rials. In contrast, life-cycle assessment is used to assess the possible impacts of a product, procedure or activity on the environment dur- ing the course of its life (life-cycle). Subsequently, a marketing strat- egy is developed, which takes the ecological and social aspects into consideration. Green marketing allows a new, ever-increasing cus- tomer group to be addressed, the ‘LOHAS’ (chapter 15). In doing so, the structure of the book is based on five possible phas- es of a sustainable innovation process: • Awareness of a problem : Prior to the start of the innovation process all parties involved have to become aware of an exist- ing problem. • Identification & Definition of the problem : After recognizing a problem the stakeholder has to define the problem as accu- rately as possible. Very often, a company can only overcome the challenges that arise with changes in the framework conditions by means of innovations. Innovative ideas can only take hold, however, if the market accepts them. Therefore, a company has to understand its customers. • Ideation & Evaluation of the solutions : Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing and communicating new ide- as to solve the defined problem. • Testing & Enrichment of the solutions : Companies follow phi- losophies like Cradle-to-Cradle or management systems like corporate social responsibility (CSR) or lifecycle assessment (LCA) to ensure lasting success of sustainable products. • Implementation & Marketing of the solutions : Ending and starting point of a sustainable innovation process is the so called green marketing. 13 chapter 1: IntroductIon to the concept of sustaInabIlIty Sven Pastoors Summary “We are living beyond our means” – a striking statement made by the press as well as leading scientists! For a good 50 years, both sci- entists and companies have been growing increasingly aware that we are living beyond our means and are exhausting our natural re- sources. We are removing more from nature than can be replenished naturally. Sustainability is a concept that seeks to tackle this problem. It de- scribes the ability of a community, organisation or a company to op- erate in such a way that they also have the capacity to endure into the future. This does not only apply to every individual and every com- pany, but also for humanity as a whole. In the long-term, the global community cannot live at the expense of future generations. This also includes individual communities not being allowed to consume in such a way that they burden people in other regions of the world. 14 Pastoors · Scholz · Becker · van Dun: Towards Sustainable Innovation Sustainability is a cross-sectional task, because it affects all the are- as of our lives. Its implementation is a global challenge. Due to glo- balisation, the social, economic and ecological consequences can be felt worldwide. Environmental and development problems cannot be solved by one country alone; rather they must be solved together in close collaboration. 1.1 The concept of sustainability “Sustainable development satisfies the needs of the present genera- tion, without endangering the possibilities of future generations to meet their own needs.” 3 Since 1987, this United Nations definition has characterised the discussion about the terms sustainability and sustainable development. Sustainability 4 describes the ability of a community, organisation or a company to operate in such a way that they also have the capacity to endure into the future. This does not only apply to every individual and every company, but also for hu- manity as a whole. In the long-term, the current global community cannot live at the expense of future generations. This also includes individual communities not being allowed to consume in such a way that they burden people in other regions of the world. Even though the first calls for the sustainable use of the natural re- sources were already made in antiquity, the efficient use of natural resources did not play a role for a long time (Rogall 2012, p. 29-31). The term “sustainability” itself derives initially from the forestry sec- tor in the 18th century. 5 3 “Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without com- promising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” United Nations, 1987, p. 34. 4 Here, sustainable development and balance between the economy, com- munity and organisation is meant. 5 “Fell only as much wood as the forest can endure! As much wood, as can regrow!” (von Carlowitz, H.-K., 1713) 15 Chapter 1: Introduction to the concept of sustainability The discussion about sustainable development originates from the global economic crisis of the 1970s. This crisis made it clear that we are endangering our own livelihood through the exploitation of nat- ural resources. Today, sustainability is an economic concept. Eco- nomic, ecological and social developments must not be separated from one another or played off against each other: no permanent economic and social progress without an intact environment – no intact environment without economic and social well-being. Sustainability is a cross-sectional task, because it affects all the are- as of our lives. Its implementation is a global challenge. Due to glo- balisation, the social, economic and ecological consequences can be felt worldwide. Environmental and development problems cannot be solved by one country alone; hence they must be solved together in close collaboration. From this, the three dimensions of sustaina- bility can be deduced: Ecological sustainability ( E cological): • Ecological sustainability describes the considerate handling of resources and the environment. • It covers every step of the product life cycle (extraction of raw materials, production, packaging, marketing, transport, use and disposal). • A way of producing and living, which only stresses the natural resources to a limited extent so that they can regenerate, is con- sidered ecologically sustainable (Rogall 2012, p. 47). Social/ethical sustainability ( E thical): • Social/ethical sustainability describes responsible behaviour of all the people involved in a process. • The aim is to keep social tensions limited and to settle conflicts in a peaceful and reasonable manner.