Innovation for sustainable development: from environmental design to transition management |
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Authors: | Karel F Mulder |
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Institution: | (1) Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, Department of Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development, Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 RZ Delft, The Netherlands |
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Abstract: | Society needs to adapt in order to provide the wealth that an increasing part of the world population is getting used to.
We are on a track to ecological and resource collapse if actions are not taken soon. Technology will have to play a key role
in the process of changing industrial society. But innovation has to be embedded in social and organizational innovation.
We need sociotechnical change. Environmentally conscious design has been practiced in engineering design for more than a decade.
Its merits are sometimes blamed as futile, as the world has not witnessed a significant contribution to the solution of the
larger (global) problems. This paper first sketches a scheme of the various levels of technological change, ranging from:
(1) incremental optimizations of single artifacts, to (2) major change of artifacts, (3) systems change, and (4) technological
transitions (involving changes in production and consumption). It outlines the stakeholders involved in these types of innovations
and the parties that could orchestrate the innovation process. In this paper, It is argued that the most encompassing level
of technological innovation, the level of transition, is crucial for achieving long-term sustainable development, as it has
the largest potential for improvement. However, transition is not very well manageable. The paper contains a review of the
literature regarding the occurrence of technological transitions. After a transition has occurred, the new system is often
not efficient. Its gains in terms of diminished resource consumption or pollution have to be enlarged by less encompassing
innovation strategies, such as systems innovations and product optimization. Transitions for sustainable development are often
impossible, as the new systems have to compete with fully developed and optimized systems that have far advanced at the learning
curve, i.e., are optimized by various systems and incremental innovations. Less encompassing levels of innovation, even those
that aim at more sustainability, can counteract transitions that have more potential for sustainable development by improving
the competing (unsustainable) technology. The paper will give several examples of this dilemma and some guidelines for developing
government policies as well as corporate strategies. On the policy level, it is argued that it is especially important to
develop (scope for) market niches for new sustainable systems and products as they create scope for experiments that could
lead to transitions.
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Keywords: | Innovation Technology Backcasting Scenario Plastics |
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