Sustainability innovation in early phases

Sustainability is a complex but extremely important issue. To achieve a new industrial revolution that focuses on sustainability, we need innovation. Merely improving our technologies and our habits will not save our planet from its current gradual degradation. In recent decades many Eco-tools have been developed; this paper evaluates some of the most used methods, how they help to consider sustainability in the product development process and identify important and missing characteristics, arguing that many eco-tools were experienced by the companies as too complex and time-consuming and often not aiding a radical innovation process. These characteristics guided the development of a framework with creative methods for sustainability driven innovation based on a multidisciplinary workshop approach. It focuses on analyzing customers from a sustainable viewpoint, understanding their real needs, using ideation tools to generate ideas in areas not usually considered in current eco-tools, e.g. changing customer behavior or the business model. The method was developed, tested and evaluated in an iterative approach over a six-month period. Copyright © 2002-2012 The Design Society. All rights reserved.