Sustainable innovation management: Ten lessons from innovation studies for a sustainable paradigm

Sustainability goals, such as those associated with the the post-2015 development agenda of the United Nations, have to be translated into new commercial products and services as well as different ways of making and delivering them that replace less-sustainable alternatives. This is the role for firms intending to profit from innovation while meeting sustainable goals. Sometimes these innovators are small entrepreneurial firms that see sustainable products as an ideal niche in which to start a new business venture. Sometimes these innovators are large firms that have identified opportunities where customers and / or technologies are new. Successful innovation at the firm level contributes cumulatively to industrial structural change in a process known as “creative destruction.” Through this process, a new paradigmcan emerge, within which sustainable economic growth flourishes in an inclusive manner consistent with the goals of the United Nations post-2015 agenda.