Systematic Review - Network for Business Sustainability

volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from a printing
company’s flue gases. In another case, relatively large
amounts of glass waste generated by one company
were used in the construction industry. The innovations
led to environmental and economic benefits (Mirata &
Emtairah, 2005).
Both industrial symbiosis projects powerfully illustrate
the importance of the systemic view. Individually,
firms in the projects were unsustainable, but as a
system, they are sustainable. Firms can become part
of sustainable systems without having to become
sustainable independent of those systems 6 , which
raises important questions about whether individual
firms can be sustainable within unsustainable systems;
this question demarcates the frontier of current thinking
and practice.
2. Collaborations become increasingly
interdependent
In Organizational Transformation, firms redesign
collaborations and engage with more diverse
collaborators and with collaborators who previously
would have been dismissed, including competitors and
lobby groups (Dangelico & Pujari, 2010). Firms on their
own have limited impact on sustainability challenges,
which require systems solutions. Therefore, the formal
and informal institutions of society need to come
together, and firms, government, scientific institutes,
NGOs and individuals need to participate in open
experimentation (Loorbach, Van Bakel, Whiteman &
Rotmans, 2010).
6 The authors are grateful to Pam Laughland for this observation.
In the base metals industry, radical innovations are
rarely implemented (despite their availability) because
of technologically and socially embedded production
systems — the locked-in effect. A solution could be
to develop and extend inter-firm knowledge networks,
which are useful for knowledge cross-fertilization,
especially at the pre-competitive stage. Such networks
should include connections with public R&D facilities,
such as universities and technological institutes (Moors
& Vergragt, 2002).
In the context of Organizational Transformation,
collaborations can be complex. For example, tensions
may emerge with a hostile NGO. Yet, NGOs may view
industry as culpable while working collaboratively
with business on innovative remedial or development
programs, such as in the following example:
In Practice
Greenpeace worked with the German firm
Foron Household Appliances to challenge
established practices and propose an
alternative in the manufacture and use
of harmful chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)
refrigerants. Greenpeace acted as a bridge,
both by establishing links with mavericks,
key market players and lead adopters
and by linking into coalitions of supportive
market players and stakeholders. Adapted
from Stafford and Hartman (2001).
integrating collaborators sets the context for new
product development (NPD) (Ornetzeder & Rohracher,
2006).
Innovating for Sustainability 38