Systematic Review - Network for Business Sustainability

one stage to the next and the end point. However,
the models do offer a general indication of direction of
travel for SOI.
Together, earlier models portray a dynamic but
challenging process. In the early 1990s, a principal
concern of research was the legitimacy of sustainability
thinking within business decision-making. Because
the case for the sustainability approach has largely
now been made, models increasingly view the
initial stages of SOI as a series of gradual changes,
with incremental innovations addressing specific
issues. Such innovations focus on technological
change around products and processes, reflecting a
compliance-based or risk-reduction orientation. Initially,
firm behaviour may be unsystematic and reactive —
even reluctant — but can become more deliberate as
sustainability thinking becomes more widely embraced
within the firm and integrated into day-to-day activities
(e.g. the management of inputs, processes, suppliers
and products). The innovation focus moves to clean
up polluting processes and subsequently to efficiencydriven
environmental or social management: innovation
to optimize efficiencies. Internal systems are redesigned
to become less environmentally burdensome. Modified
and new products, processes and services emerge, but
within the prevailing context and market framework.
Models exploring the innovation territory beyond
compliance and optimization suggest the need
for a fundamental shift in innovation thinking and
practice. This shift moves the firm from a passive or
reactive relationship with environmental and social
considerations through the development or redesign
of sustainable offerings to find novel ways of delivering
and capturing value, which will change the basis of
competition (Nidumolu, Prahalad & Rangaswami, 2009:
60).
This approach can be conceptualized as a shift
from “business-as-usual” thinking characterized by
established routines for searching, selecting and
implementing, to “doing things differently” through
significant modification — or even abandonment — of
existing routines and the development of new ones.
Such innovation goes beyond reviewing the relationship
between a product and the environment, to rethinking
production, consumption and delivery; imagining new
outcomes and understanding; and leveraging the
interdependencies of system components (Seebode,
Jeanrenaud & Bessant, 2012). Such learning and
“unlearning” may be a particular challenge for
incumbent firms, but may be less so for new entrants
who are unconstrained by legacies.
Some models show a distinct shift toward greater
proactivity and more strategic sustainability
management. Technological solutions give way to
innovation extending beyond the boundaries of the firm.
The motivation changes from reducing harm to making
a net positive impact. The firm transforms by revisiting
values, culture, purpose, relationships and practice
(McDonough & Braungart, 2002).
The most contemporary model we reviewed is
Elkington’s (2012) Pathways to Zero. It is a vision of
new business models and new forms of value; of new
and extensive partnerships reaching deep and wide
across social, institutional, regulatory and stakeholder
strata; and of wider cultural change beyond the
capacity of enterprises to control but the development
of which they can motivate and inspire.
Innovating for Sustainability 16