Exploring the need for more radical sustainable innovation: what does it look like and why?

Abstract

It has been argued in recent years that Western economies need to increase their resource productivity by 90% over the next 50 years. This is a radical aim. This paper draws on design for sustainability (DfS) thinking to scope interventions that encourage greater levels of resource productivity through reconfiguring concepts of growth and well‐being within organisational strategies, structures, systems, processes and outputs. Based on research from a UK EPSRC funded project Design Dialogues (2005–2008), this paper links together sustainable design and innovation literatures and dialogue‐based primary research that together inform the development of an approach to innovation for sustainability. The emphasis on sustainable innovation is to understand what is designed (the outputs of business) and why (the inputs: the values, beliefs, visions and objectives) within a context of ecological limits. The foundations of this approach are introduced here in order to demonstrate the potential to provoke a new way of thinking about longer‐term organisational innovation through making explicit the intrinsic connections between natural and human capitals. This paper explores the need to think differently in order to create sustainability and presents the outcome of this research: a methodology for innovation for sustainability.

Keywords:

• sustainable innovation
• design for sustainability
• Factor 10
• ecological limits
• creating sustainability
• organisational culture

1. Introduction

Originally proposed by the World Conservation Strategy in 1980, the term sustainable development received widespread currency as a result of its promotion by the World Commission on Environment and Development, commonly referred to as the Brundtland definition of sustainable development: ‘the main aim of sustainability is to seek continued economic growth within the carrying capacity of the Earth's natural systems whilst meeting quality of life for all, now and in the future’ (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Whilst this sounds a comprehensive approach, traditional business models, governed by economic drivers, limit activity to that which produces established economic benefits to business and its direct shareholders. Consideration of the broader issues of environment and society are limited to efficiency gains: improving per unit resource productivity; and maximising positive social impacts, such as employment creation or corporate donations (Dyllick and Hockerts 2002).

The current business mindset towards sustainability thus reduces the scope of corporate sustainability strategies to those that can be justified in economic terms. This is cause for concern given that The United Nations Conferences on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002 have provided the opportunity to establish sustainable development as a core requirement of the global business agenda (Christie et al. 2001). In addition it has become increasingly clear that industry, as the largest global economic player, has a central responsibility for driving such sustainable change (Fussler and James 1996). The case for industry to become more accountable for their actions has been made time and time again and organisations are a central focus of this research. However, the ‘power of one’ agenda – individual and collective accountability for sustainable change – has increasingly been highlighted as a necessary focus, particularly in considering large changes in resource consumption behaviour (UK Government 1997). This paper will highlight the need to link both the large, organisational scale and the small, individual scale in developing an effective methodology for innovation for sustainability.

The notion of a multi‐scale approach was highlighted recently by the UK Government Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, the Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP (Benn 2008) when he outlined the need to fundamentally change the way in which we work and live. He stated that there was a need to: ‘show people what sustainable development actually means when you are making policy, or running a business, or designing a building, or making a product, or providing an education, or just getting on with everyday life.’ He also stressed that a gap still exists between ‘fitting together the economic, the social and the environmental and in particular, ensuring that the economy lives within environmental means’.

It is this ‘living within environmental means’ that makes an interesting case for radical design that fosters resource productivity in the long‐term. This paper considers the need to think differently about working within these limits, and it underlines a clear need to start linking organisational objectives with human capital and creativity. It identifies the need to intervene in the value systems of the organisation and of its people – the ‘social fabric’ – in order to deliver innovation opportunities where it is practicable to create sustainability. Thus an approach begins to emerge that describes interventions at both cultural and operational levels that incorporate different scales, elements and levels of action. This holistic view of sustainability in business has great potential to guide radical innovation for sustainability, with engineering and design activities as core catalysts of change.

2. The need for a different view of resource use

A long‐term view of global resource productivity requires us to explore the relationship between current design for sustainability activities (that focus on reducing the environmental impacts of the outputs) and the need to develop different types of business outcomes that promote a transition toward global levels of sustainable development.

A number of commentators (Factor 10 Club 1994, Hawken et al. 2000, Manzini 2001) have established the need for a step‐change in behaviour to reduce energy and material resource use in Western economies over the next 50 years to meet suggested levels of improvement required for global sustainable development. These predicted levels of resource efficiency range from between Factor 4 (a 75% reduction in energy and materials intensity) to Factor 20 (a 95% reduction) (von Weizsäcker et al. 1997). In order to realise these step‐change transitions in resource use existing responses to sustainability need to be effectively challenged. This research project champions a ‘way of thinking’ and in addition provides the ‘how to's’ to act differently. Implicit in this transition is the need to question problems from a systems perspective, which directs activity away from more traditional product‐related thinking, enabling alternative consumption choices to be made visible and ideas about sustainable lifestyles made tangible (Dewberry and Sherwin 2003).

The crux of ‘unsustainability’ lies in an historic notion that humans can displace resources through extraction and processing, consume resources in manufacture and use and permanently displace resources as waste throughout the whole life of material flow, and specifically, at the end of life. Thus our collective cultural memory of the usefulness and usability of natural and man‐made resources is independent of any sense of limits, that is: limits to the resource that is available to us [the global society]; and the limits to consumption activities that emerge as increasing numbers of the world's population look to consume in the same way, and at the levels of the more industrialised economies. As the creators of ‘consumed things’, designers and engineers and, more broadly, industry need to re‐conceive ways to meet these demands. These ways will undoubtedly require a rethink of material flows and re‐flows, and the promotion of a dramatic reduction in the current amounts of ‘permanent’ waste (Cooper 1999). This is not an easy task as it requires new ways to address barriers to action (e.g. mindsets of competition and legislation) coupled with an ability to identify opportunities to respond to peoples' real needs (Papanek 1971).

3. Developing capacity for intervention

Within business there exists a gap between the current understanding of sustainability (an understanding rooted in a linear economic system driven by efficiency that allows only for relative improvements in ecological and social well‐being) and the need to shift emphasis to a more radical position that encompasses the societal case and the natural case, operating within the Earth's carrying capacity, alongside a more cyclical economic model (Xiao and Wang 2007). As illustrated in Figure 1, it is this transition within corporate activity [and design as part of this activity] from efficiency to effectiveness [effectiveness representing long‐term prosperity embracing renewable and wholly sustaining solutions (McDonough and Braungart 2001)] that offers the greatest potential for Factor 10 outcomes.

Figure 1 Design for sustainability situated within the expanding scope of corporate sustainability(adapted from Dyllick and Hockerts 2002).

However, it is likely that this more comprehensive approach to [design for] sustainability is limited by our understanding of, and relationship to, nature (Orr 1994). The current industrial culture and language towards nature promotes it as a resource to be controlled and exploited which, in itself, validates the status quo and limits opportunities for different responses in this debate. Couple this with the proposed timescales for the need for Factor 10 action, and a picture emerges that points to the need for a more radical innovation in response to our current misuse of global resources. Factor 10 also has a ‘soft’ side: it is about attaining long‐term well‐being by insuring the existence of natural capital for future generations (Schimidt‐Bleek 2000). Its potential lies in setting new goals and thus seeking new approaches to address well‐being that effectively balances environment, society and economics, where ‘growth’ sits within the regenerative capacity of the Earth's natural capital. To date research on Factor 10 has focused on the ‘hard’ side, for example: reducing the impacts of the production of products through ecodesign strategies. Attention now needs to be placed on the intelligent use and consumption of resources throughout the whole life‐cycle, which will require a deeper understanding of the role of innovation in production, trade and consumption (Schimidt‐Bleek 2000). This links to the ethical use of energy and resources by organisations, and society more broadly, where organisations are required to strategically reconsider and report how they ‘ecologically account’ for their outputs. The Factor 10 goal challenges a ‘business‐as‐usual’ response to sustainability; it requires the adoption of different value sets and priorities in order to produce different types of outputs that encourage different life styles.

4. Resource efficiency in design today

Whatever the product, the decisions that affect environmental impacts are defined and ‘locked‐in’ at the very early stage of the design development cycle. It is therefore imperative that strategies aimed at reducing environmental burden target early decision‐making around the scope and influence of the design (Graedel and Allenby 1995). To date this has not been emphasised within design and engineering activity and instead the following actions have prevailed: to react to potential impact once the strategic scope and subsequently environmental impact of the output have been defined; and to focus on maximising resource productivity and minimising wastes and emissions (Simon et al. 1998).

While these strategies to reduce the environmental burden can be effective in reducing environmental impacts on a per unit basis, they do little to address the net rise in the use of materials and energy resources associated with increasing levels of global consumption (Roy 2000). This illustrates that the design for sustainability ‘equation’, while traditionally viewed as a problem of production, is also inextricably connected to the consumption dynamic. Both parts of the equation need attention in terms of holistic responses to long‐term sustainability (Aldridge 2003).

A shift from product to service outcomes relies on a shift in thinking away from focusing on parts of a system to address the whole solution across the entire life‐cycle. Innovation at a functional or systems level (Brezet 1997) provides opportunities for companies to re‐vision their core competencies and to rethink their competitive advantage in the context of sustainable development (De Simone and Popoff 1997, Manzini 1999). Van der Ryn and Cowan (1995) suggest that there are three critical strategies for this level of design for sustainability: conservation, regeneration, and stewardship. A combination of these strategies focuses on both the technical and social dimensions of sustainability and encourages new kinds of creative endeavour while still acknowledging ecological limits.

While the rhetoric of a dematerialised service approach suggests the potential for Factor 10 improvements in resource productivity, activity continues to centre on the outputs (products and services). Only a few tools and methods move beyond efficiency gains to address a rethinking of corporate design activity (Brezet 1997). What is required here is a move away from tools and methods that seek improved solutions towards a praxis that rethinks both the values and systems (the inputs) of the organisations and of the individuals responsible for creating solutions. To create sustainability (to be more radically innovative), the behaviour of the system that creates the problem (and that somehow aims to create the solution), needs to be challenged. This deeply questions the current preoccupation with tinkering with products or systems to ‘reduce unsustainability’.

Figure 2 The importance of context in designing for sustainability(after Fletcher and Dewberry 2002).

We can imagine two ‘contexts’ of design for sustainability as depicted in Figure 2. The left hand side represents the current discipline of design or engineering: its inputs, processes and outputs. This context is relatively ‘fixed’ in our minds with the expectations and boundaries of these disciplines well established. As a result, what emerges is an environmental improvement of what exists through an approach of ‘reducing “unsustainability”: making what we do today less bad (Ehrenfeld 2004).

If we now consider the right hand side of the figure, the context is sustainability. This is a large, complex and dynamic issue best approached through systemic thinking that enables interconnections across diverse academic disciplines, cultures and practice; providing new insights and interpretations on the problems of our time. It challenges the traditional boundaries and expectations of design and engineering. Through this process design and engineering have the opportunity not only to re‐interpret their own roles in providing alternative solutions to ‘unsustainability’ but also in their influence on doing things differently – to ‘creating sustainability’ (Ehrenfeld 2004). In other words, disciplines of design and engineering need to effectively challenge how they deliver solutions towards sustainability, and in so doing deliver radical transformations in the way we use and waste material and energy resources.

So, in brief, a transformation in culture that reflects resource limits is required for both industrial and social outputs to move toward a more sustainable footing (Starkey and Crane 2003). This shift in perspective will likely be evolutionary rather than revolutionary as changing peoples' mindsets and attitudes requires a disassociation from existing patterns of behaviour in order to envisage new, more appropriate patterns of activity (Bohm 2000). In other words to achieve a step‐change towards sustainability there is a need to recognise that people (individuals, communities, organisations and government) cannot continue to de‐couple inputs (their thoughts and imagination) from outputs (their language, communication and activities). Both industry and society need to comprehend the long‐term consequences of reinforcing positive feedback loops in perpetuating the current ‘accepted’ view of resource (mis)use and linked behaviours. For organisations in particular this connects to the production and consumption cycle and the dominant business focus of responding to, and creating, market drivers that satisfy and consolidate the economic bottom line. As Lewis and Gertsarkis (2001) point out:

‘The challenge in the developed countries is to redesign entire production and consumption systems in order to produce, in the medium to long term, the same level of wellbeing and the same quality of life with less resources and energy’.

In finding ways to influence a change in inputs and outputs that reflect Factor 10 levels of improvement, the challenge for design thinking 1 and related activities is to locate and create appropriate patterns of thought (culture and strategic decision‐making) and practical outcomes (operational processes and tangible outcomes) in alignment with sustainable development goals that embrace effectiveness, equality and sufficiency. Such interventions are most likely strategic in nature although not exclusively so; action from the ground up has also great potential to demonstrate alternate ways of responding to ‘unsustainability’: people‐to‐people relationships in organisations hold great potential for sharing, learning, and change.

‘Communities of practice can drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop people's professional skills, and help companies recruit and retain talent.’ (Wenger and Snyder1996).

Nonetheless, a strategic change in the culture of organisations will be necessary in influencing greater levels of sustainability both up and down supply chains. This poses a problem for designers and engineers in promoting radical innovation because high‐level strategic decision‐making within organisations rarely involves these discipline groups (Manzini 2005). More often designers and engineers are utilised operationally to respond to product briefs developed by those outside the discipline of engineering and product design. This is partly due to the way in which others view the scope of these activities but is additionally associated with an inability of the design and engineering community to explicitly draw out their strengths and utilise them more strategically (Fuad‐Luke 2002).

The remainder of this paper describes how an approach to innovation for sustainability can be developed by linking that which is currently fragmented: the organisational responsibility – the values beliefs and motivations of individuals; and the outputs associated with this – such as operational process and product improvement. This approach is guided by the systemic qualities of design thinking that reframe problems and foster new opportunities. This focus emphasises the need to deeply question the relationship between people and the environment; what Manzini (1992) termed a ‘new product culture’. In essence, the approach pursues radical innovation for sustainability that challenges the individual, the discipline's boundaries, and the organisational mindset to create sustainability in preference to continuing to reduce unsustainability (Ehrenfeld 2004).

5. Investigating motivations for sustainability

Effective dialogue is vital in drawing out what is important and motivating for people in constructing a meaningful response to sustainability. The philosophical approach of the research reported here was influenced by a constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz 2003) as its primary aim was to understand how people saw, perceived and described their well‐being, welfare and ideas of desirable futures (Denzin and Lincoln 2003), and how these could inform a new business paradigm, within which design and engineering operate.

The data collection utilised a multi‐method approach (Robson 2002) to support the use of storytelling, games and other techniques of interviewing people in order to develop an understanding of language, communication, learning, teaching, thoughts and motivations in the context of sustainability and innovation (Bohm 2000). Figure 3 illustrates the different ways in which dialogues were used throughout the research journey. The key intention was to establish a dialogue – ‘a conversation’ – to enable the effective sharing of ideas and a deeper understanding of the other's perspective. Thus creating a dialogue with people already engaged in thinking and acting differently to ‘unsustainability’ was central to the process of this research.

Figure 3 The use of dialogues in the research.

In order to investigate first‐hand the values and motivations of those involved in ‘doing’ sustainability (practice and teaching) conversations were undertaken with 15 experts in the areas of ecodesign, sustainable development management, ecological economics and corporate responsibility. Furthermore, a study of UK organisations already communicating values of sustainability and elements related to sustainability (e.g. local products, fair‐trade, organic products and ingredients, and business responsibility) was carried out through secondary research using company annual reports, marketing materials and product brochures.

These early dialogues (and to a lesser degree the secondary data from the companies) showed that there was a surprising level of agreement on what comprised core sustainability values and motivations, both for self and for the organisation. Two key points emerged:

1. the importance of individuals in driving sustainability and the subsequent need for empowerment and accountability;

2. the value‐system of individuals – their beliefs and motivations, and how these values can be integrated within activity throughout the whole organisation.

These research findings informed the scope of the next stage of the project that involved talking to people within organisations already ‘walking the sustainability talk’. The purpose of this stage was to comprehend their effectiveness in delivering different outputs in order to understand the nature of decision‐making and to further understand the links between the thoughts and activities inside the organisation (conduct of action, strategies, structures, systems and processes) and their external outputs (e.g. products, services and practice) (Greenwood and Hinings 1993). The aim was to find evidence to support what had been underlined in the early conversations with the experts such as the importance of the connection between the different organisational value‐systems and the different outputs that are generated as a consequence of them in order to foster greater levels of sustainability.

Six organisations, representing a range of company size and industrial sector (food, architecture, leisure and tourism, cosmetics and financial services), developed a dialogue with the research team. Key people in these organisations were encouraged to talk about the foundation values of their businesses and how these translated to their strategies, structures, systems, processes and outputs. The organisations demonstrated different behaviours and different ways of achieving outputs, and it therefore became important to understand how these values were expressed and how they informed organisational outputs, not only across the whole organisation, but also across the business cycle (a key point emphasised in the dialogues with experts).

The dialogues with experts and with organisations emphasised the importance of innovation as an approach to sustainability. Innovation, as suggested by De Bono (1999), should challenge what people know and should explore the different dimensions of performance at the organisational level (Drucker 1988). Both the dialogues with experts and those in organisations expressed the need to challenge the current values‐system in business. However, the sustainable innovation literature does not challenge the current business value‐system. Instead it uses environmental strategies to guide unique capabilities for new product success (Hart 1995), and reinforces the goals of creating new market demand and added value (Andersen 2004).

The organisations interviewed expressed a focus beyond market demands. If market demands alone govern activity then the potential to create sustainability will be limited to what people know today – improving unsustainability; but these organisations were challenging the current business value‐system and the place of people in it. The dialogue process uncovered a holistic approach to innovation for sustainability that has the potential to challenge the current economic bottom‐line focus. These conversations illustrated innovation for sustainability that embraces a sustainability culture within which alternative futures and different outputs can be visualised: this is the underlying premise of a methodology for innovation for sustainability.

6. Innovation for sustainability: a new paradigm

The contributions from the dialogue approach provided a good foundation from which to create a methodology to facilitate the act of ‘creating sustainability’. This embodied two key paths: a behavioural one – transforming the cultural paradigm; and an operational one – focusing on concrete actions. The objective of this methodology was to ensure common mental frameworks, approaches and points of reference.

A holistic approach to innovation for sustainability enables the potential within organisations to take ‘a leap’ from their usual pattern of behaviour. This leap represents a paradigm change where priorities, values and aims are radically different from traditional innovation that tends to reflect a series of adaptations in response to new technology and market demands (as empirically explained and illustrated by two major innovation consultancies in Barcelona – CN and Node – see Figure 4). Leaps (e.g. Fractal Leaps) are an emergent concept in biology, a concept that undermines the unique focus on chronological development and instead introduces leaps of behaviour provoked by high levels of turbulence (Nottale 2007). This is a useful perspective when considering innovation for sustainability where changes within the values‐system and attitudes should evolve a new type of culture; one that not only promotes insights in the innovation of the outputs of the system in question, but importantly also encourages challenges to the inputs of the system to reframe the scope of agendas and activities towards sustainability.

Figure 4 Descriptions of innovation for sustainability(after CN and Node 2001–2008).

Conceptual descriptions of innovation are described in Figure 4. The left hand side of the diagram presents a traditional conceptual view of innovation. Here organisations create repeated patterns of growth until the market and organisational potential is depleted. In this context the key aim of traditional innovation is to intervene, pushing the limits of this pattern, through building on the essential business values of capacities, characteristics and capabilities to capitalise on new competitive frontiers exposed through the development of a new generation of products and services. This process emphasises business competitiveness and developing new markets to achieve economic success, and it therefore continues to support the current ‘business‐as‐usual’ paradigm and the linear view of economics.

The organisations engaged in this research project demonstrated activity within a different paradigm such as that expressed by the right hand side element of Figure 4. Here organisations are operating with ecological sensibilities in mind, building on the potential of their people, and originating different ways of trading as their bottom line: exploring a circular view of economics. This illustrates an innovation perspective with ‘sustainability’ at the core of operations and graphically represents the concept of the ‘paradigm leap’ required within a system (e.g. organisational, team, government) to start creating sustainability. This reflects David Bohm's perspective (Bohm 2000) that underlines the need for interventions to provoke rapid transformations in the familiar pattern of doing things (a paradigm shift). This leap is not a break in the history of that system, but instead represents the need for a radical adaptation to survive external and extreme turbulence, (e.g. our current levels of resource use that are beyond the regenerative capacity of the Earth's biosphere). It is not a break in identity but a break in the value‐system that encompasses ways of knowing, seeing and doing (Sterling 2001). The need to meet Factor 10 levels of resource productivity requires an innovative leap from our current value‐system that drives business and individual thought and action today. When linked to design thinking and doing, this also reflects the right hand side of Figure 2 where the full potential and scope of a design approach to sustainability can be realised across all scales of activity.

7. Building an approach to innovation for sustainability

It is important when considering the structure of thinking differently about sustainability to understand that there is a requirement to generate parallel pathways that are not ignorant of the current ways of working (Douthwaite 2005). Any new approach to create sustainability should therefore incorporate short, medium, and long‐term strategies and actions that connect and work in harmony. The development of an innovation for sustainability approach was informed from living systems theory. Living systems theory recognises both abstract systems (e.g. behaviour) and concrete systems (e.g. physical or geographic) (Bailey 1995). The data from conversations were analysed using conceptual and cognitive maps (Jenny Brightman and Banxia, Ltd 2003) as these provide an understanding of both abstract and concrete elements of the system. To summarise from the dialogues with experts and organisations, the concept evolved that different ways of thinking and different ways of acting are intertwined, and that to link innovation to addressing the needs of meeting sustainability requires an approach of two parts: a behavioural one – transforming the cultural paradigm; and an operational one – focusing on concrete actions.

The objective of this approach is to ensure mental frameworks and approaches have common points of reference. Its aim is to explore the potential of social interactions and behaviour that help to create sustainability; to develop Sustainable C ultures and Operations (SuCo©) as a methodology for innovation for sustainability.

SuCo© comprises both an Operational pathway, AgreeCulture©; and a Cultural pathway, Seeds of Change. These are most usefully applied in parallel in a holistic approach to innovation for sustainability. However, although not as effective, they can also be integrated within organisations as stand‐alone approaches. Each pathway has three key elements:

1. a philosophical approach or mindset;

2. a framework;

3. a conceptual process that is not a step by step approach but rather a guide to the elements that need to be investigated and prioritised.

SuCo© also reflects the core characteristics of fractal theory: it is a structure that can be replicated at any scale or in any context (Zhou et al. 1994). In practice this means the SuCo© approach is:

1. flexible: it can be effective at different levels of the organisation (from strategic to technical levels);

2. across disciplines: it promotes a cross‐fertilisation of ideas between different disciplines when design thinking capabilities are applied (e.g. management, human resources, engineering, design, etc.) but can also be used individually by any of those single discipline groups;

3. multi‐scale: promotes interventions at different scales, e.g. product features to city planning, or team building to setting the sustainability values of the organisation;

4. multi‐purpose: can be applied to: the outcomes created (e.g. product functionality and logistics of service systems); the context or system that creates the outputs (e.g. business strategy, ethics, frameworks of governance;

5. multi‐contextual: can be used, for example, in the development of products, architecture, urban regeneration, education, politics, entertainment.

8. The pathways within SuCo©

Seeds of Change, the Cultural pathway of SuCo©, aims to provoke transformations for people at different scales: individuals, teams, leaders, organisations and even large groups of citizens. It can focus on separate elements of established culture/behaviour or intervene to completely re‐orient foundation values. It seeks to create an attitudinal change to deliver a new mindset and a capacity to create sustainability (Senge 1990). The intention is to introduce a new paradigm rather then trying to implement sustainability as an add‐on to the existing way of being.

The objective is to create a symbiosis between the thinking and the doing; it aims to implement new principles at different levels in order to change a code of values and consequently actions. The overall goal of the Seeds of Change approach is to reconnect peoples' values, beliefs and ideas; in addition, its ambition is to create a strong connection between people, organisations and the outputs they deliver. This helps build a path towards sustainability by shaping a new identity with sustainability values at its core. Figure 5 gives an overview of the Seeds of Change pathway.

Figure 5 The elements of Seeds of Change.

The Operational pathway – AgreeCulture© – aims to find new opportunities by exploring relationships in the value‐chain (i.e. chain of activities and actors – direct and indirect stakeholders, which includes nature – involved throughout the whole business cycle) and to instigate holistic sustainable solutions for different scales of action: from attributes, products, services, systems or even government. It explores new sustainable innovation opportunities by understanding existing relationships in order to create positive interventions between the different elements of the system (Miller and Miller 1994) being a system, for example, an organisation. The strength of this approach is to exhaustively analyse the value‐chain and scrutinise connections that can foster innovative outputs around organisational and business strategies including: communications (external and internal); branding and ethics; human resource management; partnerships; stakeholder engagement; and products and services (e.g. urban design, architecture, systems, and features). The AgreeCulture© pathway of SuCo© acts at a strategic level and explores new horizons. Ultimately, the goal is to build capacity to sprout new possibilities for co‐development and co‐operation, by delivering the key elements that create healthy ecosystems. Figure 6 gives an overview of the different elements that comprise AgreeCulture©.

Figure 6 The elements of AgreeCulture©.

Meadows (1999) identifies 12 leverage points to intervene in a system. The least effective of these is a focus on numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards) and material stocks and flows. But this is where society currently focuses its attention in addressing ‘reducing unsustainability’. The most effective places to intervene for sustainable change are at the ‘levels of the goals of the system and the mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback and structure arise’ (Meadows 1999). At this level, the capability to provide scope for creating sustainability exists. The SuCo© approach emphasises the system leverage points of goals and mindset in painting a broader picture of the scope of design and engineering. Individuals and/or teams that use SuCo© can consider cultural change; and/or they can address sustainability at the operations level. SuCo© is most effective when both pathways are undertaken concurrently. Nonetheless, it is important to understand that even through approaching ‘creating sustainability’ from an operations perspective (AgreeCulture©) questions will automatically reflect issues and ideas concerned with the culture of people and their organisations.

9. SuCo© and its relevance to sustainable engineering and design

Businesses are called to act upon goals of sustainable development and asked to comply with more complex social and environmental demands (e.g. WEEE legislation), and yet no solutions are readily available that foster long‐term thinking. In response to this situation, visioning future scenarios of wellbeing and introducing new models for organisations are fundamental to positive change and implicit in this is a need for a new thinking and practices that challenge dominant thought and behaviour (Manzini 2005). Design and engineering are key actors in this transition as they encompass the potential to address a strategic role in organisations and visualise new solutions and opportunities that respond to future uncertainties and that embrace all dimensions of sustainability, also, they are key instigators of design thinking.

SuCo© uses design thinking to create sustainability at different scales: new products, services or systems for example, and foster new types of links between these scales of operations across the whole business cycle. This is a new culture questioning what is designed, why it is designed (Manzini 1992) and how it is designed (the focus of SuCo©), to offer new opportunities for sustainability to flourish.

SuCo© potentially helps design and engineering to engage further in strategic decision making processes (DMP). Its approach identifies key aspects that influence and contribute to a different DMP result. It focuses on a future framework shaped by a requirement to meet Factor 10 improvements and respond to limits to growth; it originates design and development interventions to guide organisations' DMP towards sustainability; and it promotes systems thinking and establishes a new paradigm in terms of perception (culture) and action (operations). Furthermore, SuCo© builds on the characteristics of design and engineering discipline thinking – problem solving, facilitation, the integration of different discipline knowledge, and the intrinsic ability ‘to map, plan and prepare for uncertainties of the future and, where possible, shape it towards economic, social, and environmental goals’ (Dewberry and Sherwin 2003). It aims to engender a transition in business culture by incorporating these discipline capabilities and potential to operate at a strategic level, and introduce new values, alongside transitions in operations where it incorporates, understands and manipulates different forms of communication and language as mechanisms of intervention to stimulate imagination and influence change.

10. Conclusions

A methodology for innovation for sustainability provides: solutions for long‐term thinking that challenge the current agenda of ‘reducing unsustainability’; design thinking capabilities to develop creative interventions that reflect ecological limits and social equity at strategic levels; qualitative approaches to Factor 10 goals through visualising and creating platforms of activity for the future; and opportunities to explore a new role for engineering and design as a facilitator in creating sustainable futures.

The outcomes of this research describe the need to rethink current business responses to sustainability beyond that of the ‘safety zone’ of technological fix and incremental improvements to resource efficiency. A Factor 10 agenda requires a reorganisation in society's minds‐eye of how we engage with, use and dispose of, the complete range of resources that we currently have access to. This cuts across production and consumption. It will be driven in equal amounts through initiatives in business and manufacturing alongside those that connect to why people consume, what they consume and how they may consume differently. It requires ‘buy‐in’ from all lifecycle stakeholders and this buy‐in will be influenced by the ability of individuals to make sense of the goals of sustainability on a personal level. This is the ‘softer’ side of Factor 10, and an innovation for sustainability approach reflects this challenge: to develop a concept linking appropriate language, methods and tools that enables a shift in design and engineering for sustainability thinking towards Factor 10 outcomes. SuCo© is a useful beginning for an ongoing and much needed dialogue.

Acknowledgements

The research team would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)2 for funding the research project Design Dialogues: An exploratory study of design narratives, methodologies and tools towards achieving Factor 10 outcomes [2005–2008]. We would also like to thank those individuals and organisations that generously gave of their time to create the dialogues that have informed much of this work.

Notes

1. Within both the academic and professional design communities Design Thinking describes a people‐focused and systemic approach to creative activity aimed at solving problems and fostering better solutions for all (English 2006).

2. Further information on the UK EPSRC funded Design Dialogues project can be found at: http://www.creatingsustainability.org.uk