Indicator Systems for Sustainable Innovation (Sustainability and Innovation)

A comprehensive framework for an indicator system is established that allows to include different environmental innovation fields such as process innovations in.
Table of contents

In order to have optimal measurements there are two types of indicators metrics you need to be aware of: These types of indicators signal future events. They show you where you are heading.

Sustainability and the innovation ecosystem: Bruce Walker Ferguson at TEDxWWF

Examples of leading indicators can be patents filed, ideas created, and development time spent. These indicators show you your rearview mirror observations.

Read e-book online Indicator Systems for Sustainable Innovation (Sustainability PDF

The importance of a lagging indicator is its ability to confirm that a pattern is occurring or about to occur. Examples of lagging indicators include patents granted, expenses, revenue, and inventory turnover.

Observation, measurement and tracking of new product development results are essential to optimal ROI. What to look for: Choose how you want the latest innovation content delivered to you: Leave a Reply Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment.

For some indicators, the approach needs to be developed further. TransForum was a Dutch public organization that promoted innovation and developed knowledge for sustainable agriculture and liveable rural areas in the period It strived for a better understanding of sustainable metropolitan agriculture by learning from innovative, multi-stakeholder project development. Why measure sustainability performance? Measuring sustainability performance is complex because an innovation does not necessarily result in improvements in all aspects of sustainability.

For example, an improvement in environmental performance through a better feed conversion may be accompanied by a decline in employment opportunities or animal welfare. Negative effects often take place elsewhere in the supply chain and are easily neglected in the innovation process.

Sustainable Innovation Metrics – Innovation Excellence

So, there is a need for an approach that enables an easy continuous assessment of sustainability performance that makes possible trade offs in the sustainability field visible. Such an approach is helpful to guide innovations over time and prevent the introduction of non-sustainable innovations, or to detect and improve shortcomings of still promising innovations. The philosophy of assessing and guiding innovations over time is illustrated in figure 2.

One must realize that the baseline is often characterized by a slow but steady improvement in sustainability performance.

Recent Posts

How to measure sustainability performance The methodology developed evaluates and explores possibilities for sustainability improvements for local effects, global effects and system effects. The method is based on different existing international standards and scientific publications. The most important guidelines and approaches used are: