The growing importance of integrating sustainability into business strategies has been exponentially rising over the last 15 years and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) concept has become more and more popular also amongst practitioners.
Similarly, the landscape of innovation is changing and receiving a lot of attention from both theory and practice, especially in the light of (un)sustainable innovation. Indeed, there is always the probability that innovations have unforeseen consequences. However, the sustainable innovation (SI) or responsible innovation concept builds on governance approaches and innovation assessments that aim to take ethical and societal concerns into account.
Although sustainable innovation is supposed to support companies and society as a whole in facing the risks posed by grand
challenges, research in this field is still in its infancy.
By leveraging different conceptual frameworks, such as legitimacy and stakeholder theory, value co-creation and sustainable innovation management, this project aims at replying to the call for research on this topic and developing a conceptual multidisciplinary framework.
This research project aims at contributing to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable innovation with a threefold perspective: measuring the impact of sustainable innovation, managing sustainable innovation, and reporting sustainable innovation.
The three strands of research will be empirically explored from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective, focusing on a) different industries, with a specific focus on life science, b) typologies of firms, from start-ups to listed companies, and c) types of sustainable innovation, including social, environmental and governance-related (ESG) ones, to provide a comprehensive view of this topic, from the measurement of its expected impact, through its management, to its reporting practices.