Global Compact International Yearbook 2016

Important
performance
focused
Sustainability-Oriented
innovation
Performance
“Compromise”
Impact
focused
Not Important
impact
Important
With this wider perspective and more diverse population of
stakeholders, it becomes possible to tackle the big challenges
more effectively and to be part of the solution that creates a positive
future for business and society at large. In our subsequent
blog posts, we explore the types of firms and strategies that can
mesh with SOI, and the process of multi-stakeholder innovation.
Why sustainability-oriented innovation is valuable in
every context
Sustainability, sometimes under the banner of corporate social
responsibility (CSR), used to be a specialty practice used by
only a few companies, like Nike and Coca-Cola, to manage
risks to their high-value brands.
But times have changed, and as we described in our first
post, Nike is now using sustainability to drive the top line by
enhancing product development and revenue growth with
technologies such as Flyknit. Start-ups such as Liquiglide and
its super-surfactant products, unicorns such as Uber and its ondemand
transportation service, and large systems integrators
such as Lockheed Martin with burgeoning renewable energy
and energy storage systems are combining sustainability with
revenue generation in various ways. Sustainability-oriented
innovation is the basic enabler of this trend.
Because SOI allows companies to push beyond their usual innovation
boundaries and their typical business protocols, it is
expanding the range of businesses that are practicing sustainability
and finding new fuel for their innovation processes.
It is also allowing them to reap the benefits of products and
services that create social and environmental good.
The context and intent around SOI influences its final shape
and form. Our research has identified three degrees of sustainability
orientation: sustainability-relevant, sustainabilityinformed,
and sustainability-driven.
The three degrees of SOI
The most common form of SOI in the mainstream corporate
world is sustainability-informed innovation (SII). The
aim of SII is to meet a well-defined customer need using a
design informed by sustainability considerations. Nike and
its Flyknit technology discussed in our first post offer a good
example of SII.
Many “green” brands and internal labels, such as Clorox
Greenworks and Johnson & Johnson’s Earthward program, also
fit this category. Some companies, such as Patagonia, build
their whole R&D portfolio around SII. Since its founding in
the 1970s, Patagonia’s mission statement has evolved from
“build the best product” to “use our business to inspire and
implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
With this mission statement in mind, sustainability has become
integral to Patagonia’s innovation process, which has resulted
in products such as “synchilla” fleece made from recycled
plastic bottles and the recent Yulex wetsuit — the first biomaterial-derived
wetsuit in the surfing industry.
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Global Compact International Yearbook 2016