Sustainability Driving Innovation/Innovation Driving Sustainability - Lisa Friedman, Ph.D

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  • 8/7/2019 Sustainability Driving Innovation/Innovation Driving Sustainability - Lisa Friedman, Ph.D.

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    Sustainability Driving Innovation/InnovationDriving Sustainability

    Lisa Friedman, Ph.D.Enterprise Development Group, Palo Alto, CAAnd IJIS Co-Editor

    WHY SUSTAINABILITY?We are living in transformational times.

    Innovation can occur at different scales, with different size and scope. Sometimes only one productor service changes, and while it is wonderful in itself, it doesnt drive change in everything around it.However there are times when one innovation ripples out to permeate many other products andservices. Sometimes change is even more pervasive. Sometimes deep change occurs that affects howwe see our world and this change begins to work its way into everything we create.

    The classic diagram of Business Lifecycle Curves can help to illustrate this point (See Figure 1 below).At the simplest level, the lifecycle curves can apply to a product or service. The first curve dips down asthe product requires initial investment before it rounds the curve and begins slow growth. If the productis successful in its marketplace, it enters a phase of rapid growth. Over time, as the product matures, itsgrowth may begin to slow, plateau, and even decline. While a product may disappear altogether, there isalso the chance that it will be re-invented and transformed in a whole new form. Think of the horse andcarriage giving way to cars. The core product was still transportation, but it was delivered in a new form.

    Figure 1. Business Lifecycle Curves

    This same kind of shift can take place in an industry as a whole, where every business within thatindustry feels the impact. The internal combustion engine led to cars, motorcycles, trains, ships andairplanes. The transportation industry as a whole was redefined.

    At unique moments, an even deeper shift occurs that affects all industries at once a shift in eras.Think of the agricultural era giving way to the industrial era. Industry after industry was transformedat once, in parallel.

    Today, we are living at the cusp of another important shift in eras. The world is moving from theIndustrial Era to an era of sustainability. Imagine the curves in Figure 1 above as representing this shift.The first curve represents the first Industrial Revolution and the second curve does not yet have anofficial name. William McDonough, Amory Lovins, Hunter Lovins, and others have called the secondcurve The Next Industrial Era, while other sustainability pioneers call for a name that moves beyondsimply being the Next version of what came before. Paul Hawken proposed The Restorative Eraand many simply think of it as the Era of Sustainability.

    Regardless of its name, the driving force between the first curve and the second is the recognitionthat human economy is a subset of the larger natural economy on a living planet. All of our businesses and organizations exist within the context of a larger, interconnected, interdependent,living system. We dont get to choose whether this is true. We simply get to decide whether our human-created businesses and organizations align well with this larger system that in turn supportsall life on our planet.

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    The International Journal of Innovation Science

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    About the JournalThe International Journal of Innovation Science is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishesfundamental and applied research in innovation practices. The IJIS is a forum for the exchange of advanced knowledge in innovation, including emerging technologies and best practices, tools andtechniques, metrics, and organization design and culture; as well as the stakeholder engagement,change management, and leadership skills required to ensure innovation succeeds. The IJIS is dedicatedto the premise that in a global, mobile, and digital economy that is changing with exponential speed,innovation is critical to solving the world s most important problems .

    International Journal of Innovation Sciencehtt p:// InnovationScience.org

    Editor-in-Chief : Brett E. Trusko, PhDM ount Sinai School of M edicine, New York, NY, [email protected] Work phone - 212-824-7639ISSN Number : 1757-2223 Published quarterly275 ( print + on-line)264 ( print only)231 (online only)

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