Sustainable innovation Brainport...an intro

Mayra Ortega MaldonadoSustainability ConsultantVersion 17 January 2010

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Sustainable Innovation Brainport

• You are more than welcome to become a partner in our guild and work together.

• You don’t need any extra background or knowledge, only the desire to create a better world.

• We will join forces to “co-create”, this means, we will:– Identify potential ideas or challenges– Develop a common vision – Propose, select and work on the solution.

Mayra Ortega-MaldonadoFounder of the SI brainportM. Ortega Sustainability Consulting

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Sustainable Innovation Brainport

• The guild ‘Sustainable Innovation Brainport’ in CoDo is the place where we can…– share ideas, – concepts, – opinions about sustainable innovation (SI) – and its challenges.

• It is the place where we learn from each other and commit for a common purpose. Because SI is only possible with concrete ideas, projects, solutions; and we can make it happen.

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About this intro

• The following slides will bring you with some insight about sustainable innovation:– What is sustainable innovation– Different levels of sustainable innovation– Requirements for sustainable innovation– How to start?

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What is sustainable innovation?

• Sustainable innovation (SI) or ‘sustainability-driven’ innovation has no official definition in literature.

• The Center for Sustainable Design defines it as:– SI as the process where sustainability considerations (environmental, social,

financial) are integrated into company systems from idea generation through to research and development (R&D) and commercialization. This applies to products, services and technologies, as well as new business and organization models

• In our guild we will start with a different definition:

SI is a continuous innovation process that promotes well-being and prosperity for all (value creation) via solutions that are in harmony with nature and the environment

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Why a new definition?

− Sustainable Innovation (SI) is not only technology or product related, it is also about new ways of doing things which can include behavioral change.

− SI is about well-being for people and their environment. Economic value is an important goal, but it is not the goal.

− It is not only related with R&D, companies or governments. It is also related to us in our different roles (mother/father, employee, citizen, volunteer, etc)

− It is a continuous process of learning and creating we will never stop learning and proposing better solutions.

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Different levels of sustainable innovation

Time scale

Limited impact

Environmental improvement and

positive social impact

Re-design productProduct

improvement

Function innovation

System innovation

5 years 10 years 20 years

Design for sustainabilityEco-design

Eco and socially-innovative solutions

New product or service concepts to satisfy thesame functional need.

Level of uncertainty & value creationPath to sustainable solutions

Major re-design of existing products Incremental

improvements to existing products

Adapted from Charter 2004, 2007

Big impact

High level of uncertainty

Low level of uncertainty

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Requirements for sustainable innovation

SI combines and overlaps two big disciplines: sustainable development and innovation. To make it happen, there are three requirements:

1. Personal transformation: people must think, act and feel differently:• New knowledge about sustainable development and real causes of

current challenges• Perception shift (e.g. from thinking in the parts to thinking in the whole)• New skills and abilities (e.g. abilities to dialogue and work in

multidisciplinary teams, etc)• New values attitude (e.g. respect, equity and humility)

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Requirements for sustainable innovation

2. Organizational culture: (from working team complete organization): • Leadership suitable to promote innovation (e.g. focus on motivation and

less controlling)• New values and culture (e.g. promote risk taking and award team work)• Organizational structure and processes (e.g. new ways to learn as

organization and communicate)

But specially to move from a linear innovation process to a cyclical one that promotes learning and creating and sharing knowledge

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Requirements for sustainable innovation

3. Development of sustainable solutions:• Understanding the outside world and its interactions: the trends, the

new and leading (business) models, the innovative concepts, etc.

• Identifying key future-oriented opportunities

• Going beyond what is on the market and support the definition of radically new solutions

A successful, sustainable & creative organization is a dynamic organization, constantly changing and, creating new practices, processes, services & products of value

internally and to its customers.

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How will we start?

Second step: tackling a challenge• Join a challenge or propose a new one• Let’s develop together a vision and work on the solution

Third step: Involve more people• Invite people interested to participate and who can help to solve a challenge • Create the snowball effect, so more people can create guilders and we can

contribute with sustainable development

First step: common ground• This introduction is only a beginning. There is so much to say, to listen to and to

share.• So, lets (virtually) meet and talk about sustainable innovation. We need to learn

from each other and enrich our perspective.

Hopefully you are willing to join us in this exciting journey !!

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