A Framework for Developing and Assessing Eco-innovations

Book chapter, 2014

This chapter presents a framework entitled “ECORE,” which aims to assist in developing and assessing radical eco-innovations. Our proposed framework seeks to address theoretical gaps and unresolved problems from three research fields – eco-innovation, quality management, and life cycle assessment. ECORE synthesizes ideas and concepts from these three fields into a set of key principles and practices that can further integrate sustainability into business practices. These key principles are based on the idea that stakeholder interactions should form the basis of eco-innovation, that a life cycle perspective should be adopted in the design stage of eco-innovation, and that stakeholder needs must be translated into eco-innovation characteristics throughout the design process. We illustrate our framework with a hypothetical example that focuses on reducing the environmental impacts of carbonated beverage consumption. The chapter concludes by presenting the views of practitioners that were invited to provide feedback on our proposals.