Eco-Innovation - by Javier Carrillo-Hermosilla & P del Río González & Totti Könnölä & Pablo del Río González (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Eco-Innovation considers the impact industry has on our environmental surroundings whilst exploring the need for more sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development and the general understanding of the interdependence of the environment and the economy are both examined in this thought-provoking new book.

Review Quotes

'This book provides an excellent vision on how the environment can find its place in the new and rapidly changing world of business. Its content offers clarity on eco-innovation, that is, the ability to transform environmental challenges into business opportunities. It will certainly enlighten eco-innovators and decision makers at a crucial time of change.' - Beatriz Yordi, Head of Eco-Innovation Unit, Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI), European Commission.

'Eco-innovation advances our understanding of the role of innovation in creating an environmentally sustainable future. Its message is needed now more than ever.' - Dr. Gregory C. Unruh, Director of the Lincoln Center for Ethics in Global Management, Thunderbird School of Global Management.

'Progress in addressing the enormous challenges of sustainability has long been hindered by the lack of engagement with the concepts and language of competitive economic advantage. This book cuts across these boundaries and provides a working framework for more effective, long-term decision making in both business and government.' - Dr. Ron Johnston, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Innovation.

'Eco-innovation provides a new paradigm for sound and profitable management in all industries, from tourism to energy or online services. This book is a breakthrough in the theory and practice of sustainable management, a decisive reference for all business stakeholders.' -Dr. Santiago Íñiguez, Dean IE Business School.

'Fundación Entorno BCSD-Spain and its Member companies believe in sustainability as a driver to succeed. This publication gives a solid approach on how sustainable development can be a key part of the functional and emotional attributes of a product or service, issues that must be translated into communication and marketing strategies as an integrated part of the offer.' - Cristina García-Orcoyen, Chief Executive of Fundación Entorno BCSD-Spain.

'This new book provides valuable insights into the concept of eco-innovation, i.e. innovation that improves environmental performance of products or services, and its implications for policy and business strategies. Drawing on a wide range of evolutionary economics and innovation literature, the different dimensions of eco-innovation are explored. This leads to the development of an eco-innovation dashboard, covering design, user, product-service and governance dimensions, which is applied to the assessment of a number of case studies. This book should prove useful to policy-makers, business leaders and researchers interested in understanding and developing new eco-innovations, contributing to both sustainability and competitiveness.' - Tim Foxon, Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK

About the Author

DR JAVIER CARRILLO-HERMOSILLA is currently Head of the Department of Economic Environment and Executive Director of the Centre for Eco-Intelligent Management at IE Business School, Spain. He is also a Visiting Researcher at the University of Cambridge and an Independent Expert assisting the European Commission with the evaluation of FP7 proposals for Theme 6 'Environment (including climate change)'. He has dedicated the last few years to researching sustainable technological change and new policy and management models that address the environmental challenge in an innovative way. His advances in the field are expounded in numerous articles and works on environmental sustainability and technological change, published in international journals. Furthermore, he regularly contributes to leading newspapers and media and participates as a speaker in conferences on business and the environment.

DR PABLO DEL RÍO GONZÁLEZ is Research Fellow (tenured researcher) at the Institute for Public Goods and Policies (IPP) of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain. His research focuses on the factors influencing environmental technology change in firms, on climate change mitigation measures and renewable energy support schemes, particularly emission trading and tradable green certificates schemes. He has collaborated in several EU and national projects. He has more than 80 publications, more than half of them in international journals.

DR TOTTIKÖNNÖLÄ is Scientific Officer at the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre in the European Commission. He is also Adjunct Professor of Operations and Technology Management at the IE Business School and Research Fellow at its Centre for Eco-Intelligent Management. Könnölä has coordinated and supported many strategic decision-making processes in close collaboration with industry management, research directors and policy-makers to align future R&D priorities and innovation strategies with sustainability goals. His work on issues like, environmental management, strategic intelligence, foresight, evolutionary economics and technological change has been published widely.