The Social Impact of Green Innovation: Towards a Conceptual Framework

ABSTRACT

Amidst the environmental crisis, governments and communities increasingly expect businesses to follow a “green agenda” when undertaking innovation. This paper proposes that innovating firms, when following a green strategy, have the potential to generate a wider social impact, besides the usual positive business outcomes. The main arguments are developed under the multiple helices concept (derived from the original triple helix model of innovation), which proposes a collaborative approach between key institutions. The framework allows investigation of: (1) how various innovation-actors assist firms in undertaking green innovation and (2) to what extent does green innovation (via multiple helices) create a social impact? This paper will be valuable as the conceptualisation of social impact assists governments in supporting those business-initiated green innovation projects which maximise public good.

KEYWORDS:

• Green innovation
• multiple helices approach
• social impact
• human capital
• social capital
• collective identities
• environmental literacy
• community well-being

Acknowledgments

The authors highly appreciate the full support of EFD Vietnam, University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City-International School of Business (Vietnam) and Western Sydney University-School of Business (Australia).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Western Sydney University [Candidature Support Fund]; Environment for Development (EFD Vietnam) – Economy & Environment Partnership for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA)[Candidature Support Fund].