Whole System Innovation: the Blog

Sustainable Innovation and Innovation for Sustainability

From Webzine and the New York Academy of Sciences

A corporation's organizational framework must facilitate and encourage employee innovation and risk-taking. Frequently, integral decision making must occur at lower employee levels where people have the greatest information on products, markets, customer feedback and relationships. It is critical that innovation across employee levels is encouraged and supported, but how can a corporation ensure innovation and more importantly, sustainable innovation? How do companies internalize a culture and process to ensure consistent innovation?

GE's 'Ecomagination' initiative to double global revenue from environmental products by 2012 has radically shifted public attention from the company's reputation as an environmental laggard to a new role as an eco-innovator. Other companies such as Pfizer (green chemistry) and Toyota (hybrid technology) claim growing markets for their products among both consumers and businesses.

Arthur D. Little's recent report, The Innovation High Ground, finds that as many as 95% of companies believe that such 'sustainability-driven innovation' has the potential to deliver business value and almost 25% believe it definitely will. Where are sustainability-driven innovators headed and what can other companies learn from them?

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I have long awaited the day when business and technology would begin to use principles of sustainability as the foundation for how we create and pay for our products and services. Well, the future has arrived with the concept of triple bottom line and socially responsible investing, which holds a whole new framework for innovation to emerge.

If you like to watch your money AND the planet grow green take a look below. Thank you Cliff for all of your years of persevering with GreenMoney Journal. You have helped make a once future idea (green investing) become a growing present day activity.

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In GreenMoney Journal’s special 15th Anniversary issue (Summer 2007) they are looking ahead at the next fifteen years through the eyes of several visionary leaders who have shaped today’s green investing and business world.

GreenMoney forecasts offer a greener future, to be sure. Be prepared to see a “green print” for a more sustainable world in which both challenge and opportunity abound. If fact, the next 15 years will be more critical then the last as we shift our attention from global war to global warming.

How will we evolve? Petroleum wars will end as people more fully realize the human and environmental costs associated with the finite commodity. The evolution will continue as the clean green energy revolution builds momentum. Issues of political justices and socio-economic justice will become even more closely tied. Higher environmental standards, clear market incentives and the laws of supply and demand will drive the culture of sustainable innovation.

Patriotism will be demonstrated not by SUV bumper stickers, but by responsible ecological behavior. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman says, “Green is the new Red, White, and Blue.”

But this rapidly approaching future for our country is also global. Internationally, corporate accountability will include Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors as corporate management come to the inescapable conclusion that any financial analysis that excludes these factors cannot safely predict a company’s long-term profitability. According to several of our writers, the next 15 years will see the full integration of ESG into financial analysis and corporate decisions to reflect a triple bottom line.

As more individuals understand that their shopping and investing choices have impacts, they will want to make those impacts positive and sustainable. How will that happen? GreenMoney will continue to provide the answers.

In the special Summer issue: Amy Domini of Domini Social Investments shows us how the “culture of capitalism” will be fundamentally transformed; Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm outlines a dynamic future from food to technology, examining the challenges and opportunities of climate change; our favorite futurist Hazel Henderson spells out future global trends and counter trends; Spencer Beebe of Ecotrust keeps it green with an environmental discussion on advantages of Bioregions; and Joe Keefe of Pax World Funds shows us the road from Socially Responsible Investing to ESG and sustainable investing.

And if you want to get the 32-page print version (with exclusive features like the socially responsible mutual fund performance chart) of the special 15th Anniversary Summer ‘Visionaries’ issue for the Special Anniversary Rate of just $15 ( discounted from $50 ), go to the GreenMoney Journal via our website at- www.greenmoney.com . See details below.

You can also find an extensive set of 'exclusively online' articles on our web site by sustainability leaders, including Joan Bavaria of Trillium Asset Mgmt, Barbara Krumsiek of Calvert, Woody Tasch of Investors Circle, Allan Savory of Holistic Mgmt. Intl., Jean Pogge of ShoreBank, author and vegetarian chef Deborah Madison, as well as Tessa Tennant and many others.

SUBSCRIPTION Information
Online at- www.Greenmoney.com
US - $15 a year, Canada - $20 a year, International - $25 a year
Cliff Feigenbaum, Founder and Managing Editor,
GreenMoney Journal and greenmoney.com
Co-author, “Investing with Your Values” with Hal Brill and Jack Brill
Subscriptions - (800) 849-8751
Email - cliffgmj@gmail.com

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Which of you are familiar with the concepts of creativity, innovation, and sustainability?

I seek direction from you on how to incorporate ‘deep creative’ processes within inKNOWvate's emerging ‘sustainability reporting’ CoLaboratories.

The sustainability reporting phenomena is a rapidly growing trend within organizations world-wide and covers all sectors including business, NGO’s, communities/cities, education, and government. These reports help to clarify and monitor how well companies are improving their ecological, social, AND economic objectives (otherwise known as the triple bottom line); things such as material and energy usage efficiencies, as well as employment and customer satisfaction. These reports are also becoming powerful marketing tools for addressing the rapidly growing 'cultural creatives' marketplace by providing authentic and transparent responses for the consumers who are asking for more value and ‘greenness’ in their purchases.

Presently, these reports are inspiring - yes, but they are usually organized using self-determined indicators development, which help to monitor company direction. This is wonderful and important, yet the reports can be rather dry in terms of their creation, implementation, and delivery. Staff may step into their reporting process feeling overwhelmed by the additional responsibilities that are generated to deliver a good report; thus adding more weight to their already daunting work load.

That said, these reports can enable so much more. They actually become touch stones for organizational and global transformation. They are a place where organizations can get swept into new realms of design and innovation; a way to expand their understandings of how to architect richer forms of innovation.

Additionally, outcomes from entering the sustainability process are: improved human(e) communication, enhanced product design and development processes, and a renewed awareness of the company's impact on our Planet

Furthermore, the collaborative process that is necessary for creating these reports opens the door for deeper forms of creativity, thereby helping organizations realize unexpected forms of social and technical innovation, while also building a high sense of meaning among stakeholders and participants.

inKNOWvate coLabs provides delivery on this vision. Presently, I am in need of more tools that generate brain-shifting, playful, and creative processes for making the reporting process more engaging and satisfying, so that organizations can 'sustain' the process of annual reporting. I seek tools that can accommodate specific organizational needs, covering everything from designing amazing new forms of products and services (technical innovation) to changing the way companies greet each other and customers at their doorstep (social innovation).

Got ideas? Post them or email me.

Vic Desotelle
inKNOWvate Principal

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Innovation carries many assumptions. All of us carry an underlying set of beliefs. For example: We often assume that because we can make it and it holds high potential for monetary profit that someonen will make it. Why is this usually the case? The idea of technical innovation being left unmonitored at the design stage can carry dangerous results without necessary check systems.

I propose that we use a cross-over model for creating and assessing innovation: 1-social innovation, 2-organizational innovation, and 3-technical innovation. Each carries their own weight in terms of being able to create cool stuff - to innovate. However, when actively used and considered together at the same time during an innovation process, the triad relationship can help to monitor each other's outcomes by helping the core stakeholders of the innovation to make better decisions. Otherwise, to release an innovative idea that has no interplay such as this, the outcome of an innovation may end up to be detrimental.

Here is an example:

The bees are dying ...
The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world’s crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, “man would have only four years of life left”.
Loss of brain cells in children ...
Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.

This situation is serious and points directly to the idea of "Sustainable Innovation" processes. Are cell phones the culprit? Don't know yet. But it sure seems to me that something was missing during the innovation stage of this product. What might it be?

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Here's an interesting update on this issue:

Organic Bees Are Thriving While commercial bee populations are plummeting. What's with that? Seems it may not be cell RF but pesicides. The same question arises: Something was missing during the innovation stage of pesticide products. What might it be?

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By Michael Kaufman (Innovation Labs) and Vic Desotelle (inKNOWvate)

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Ethics/Innovation Relationship
What are Ethics?
Forces Creating Managerial Dilemmas (Principle Forces Creating Practical Dilemmas)
What is Innovation?
Innovative Wholes and Inventive Systems (Fractal Wholes vs Fractured Parts)
The Emerging Global Ethic
Innovation through Ethical Tension
Sustainability: Bridge from Ethics to Innovation
The New Innovation Strategy
Architecting a Regenerative Commerce
Conclusion

Ethics to Innovation Word Map

Ethics to Innovation Article (pdf format)

Introduction
In today’s business climate there are several forces intersecting in such a way as to create a tension that puts business executives, managers and employees into situations where they face an ethical dilemma. This dilemma could be summarized by the following question:

How do we do the right thing while at the same time balance the needs of all our stakeholders (investors, employees, customers and suppliers)? What is the right thing to do?

The recent events involving Enron, MCI/Worldcom, Global Crossing, Quest, Arther Andersen, and Tyco, (to name just a few) are examples of the negative consequences of actions taken by executives that face this dilemma.

These actions and the resulting surge of policies and public outcry to rebuild the faith in business and business people have created the conditions for what we call an emerging global ethic. This white paper explores the concept of this emerging global business ethic and the link between this ethic and innovation.

Continue reading "The Link between Ethics and Innovation" »

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From Space for Ideas ...

Jonathon Porritt, "Creative sustainability" podcast

In today's world, Porritt believes an organisation's cerebral creativity must be grounded in operational creativity to make ideas happen. Necessity is the mother of invention, but if desire is the real driver of human behaviour and creativity, then the necessary has to be made desirable before any kind of change becomes possible. Learning to articulate the essence of human-ness in and through nature is what creativity means to Porritt. It is through the gathering of collective ideas that technologies and processes are shaped - groups of people taking the time and space to meet to share ideas, experiments, dreams and experiences.

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Edward de Bono, "Water is not soup" podcast

"You cannot make soup without water. But a bowl of water is not a bowl of soup. It is what you add to the water that gives the 'value' of soup". Edward de Bono, the father of thinking about thinking, argues that there is no substitute for business competence, efficiency and cost control. But more than this, every business has to deliver a 'value' to customers, just like soup has to deliver a value. Designing these values requires creativity and new ideas. In his essay he argues passionately that businesses need to treat creativity as seriously as they treat capital, labour, machinery and IT.

Continue reading "Creative Sustainability: How to Catalyze Innovation" »

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Jonathon Porritt, "Creative sustainability" podcast Presented by "Space For Ideas"

In today's world Porritt believes an organisation's cerebral creativity must be grounded in operational creativity to make ideas happen. Necessity is the mother of invention, but if desire is the real driver of human behaviour and creativity, then the necessary has to be made desirable before any kind of change becomes possible. Learning to articulate the essence of human-ness in and through nature is what creativity means to Porritt. It is through the gathering of collective ideas that technologies and processes are shaped - groups of people taking the time and space to meet to share ideas, experiments, dreams and experiences.

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Take a look at this feed. These incoming articles demonstrate that the concept of sustainable innovation is no longer an idea; it's an application.

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Contributing Editor: René JornaWith a Foreword by John Elkington
http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/catalogue/innovation.htm

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.

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.

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To place an order for this title at a discount of 10%, or to view/download `The Foreword` by John Elkington, `The Preface` and `Knowledge creation for sustainable innovation: the KCSI programme` by Rene Jorna

Please visit the Greenleaf website at:http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/catalogue/innovation.htm

You can also request a review copy or inspection copy from this site - see the home page: http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com

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Design the World is copied from blog site Permanent Innovation with permission from Michael Kaufman of Innovation Labs

There is an emerging field of design called "geodesign," which is the use of design as a method of dealing with organizational, behavioral, and cultural problems. Since design is in many ways synonymous with innovation, it really means the use of design as a tool to for social innovation.

For example, a project by designer Bruce Mau that is documented in this week's International Herald Tribune is intended to help Guatemalans think positively about their country's future. (The project itself can be found here (in Spanish), although the web site is a bit sparce.

Mau's larger project is called Massive Change, which "explores the legacy and potential, the promise and power of design in improving the welfare of humanity."

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