Abstract

This chapter introduces key concepts and developments in sustainable innovation, an approach which arguably has environmental sustainability—a key challenge facing society—as its core pre-occupation. We will show you how sustainable innovation can be broadly situated along a spectrum from what is described as ‘greening’ (i.e., reducing and optimising the environmental impact of existing ways of organising) through to ‘transforming’ (facilitating systemic change). The chapter examines recent efforts to open up a broader and more expansive approach to sustainable innovation, one which includes shifting from a focus on reducing environmental pollution via more efficient production processes, towards a deeper reconfiguration of business models and broader systems of production and consumption (e.g., shifting towards sharing and re-using economies). We introduce interdisciplinary lenses and tools such as political ecology, circular economy, and heterodox economics, all of which help to provide critical reflection on who and what is benefitting from initiatives in sustainable innovation, and which remind us that clean and green sustainability initiatives are not necessarily clean and green for everyone. The chapter argues that working towards more sustainable outcomes for people and planet means wresting open the ‘black boxes’ of economy and society—i.e., questioning assumptions about the naturalness and desirability of pro-growth economies and the limits of intentional human action/agency in a more-than-human world. The chapter highlights that businesses are not the only actors in the sustainable innovation space, with increasing interest in grassroots forms of innovation in driving sustainability outcomes.