Creating sustainabilty: an exploration of innovation through dialogues

Over the next 40 years industrialised economies will need to change the way in which they use resources by a Factor of 10: this equates to a 90 per cent increase in resource productivity and will require a radical shift in our thinking and practice. This research explores what such change may mean and how it may be facilitated. Such a change resonates with the growing need for industrial systems to operate within the Earth s natural limits and fundamentally challenges business-as-usual responses to sustainability. This research addresses how people can begin to create sustainability. It is qualitative in nature, follows a constructivist grounded theory methodology and is strongly based on dialogues as a process to enable deeper understanding and a creative participatory approach. Dialogues were conducted with ten sustainability experts, three sustainability consultants and six organisations that are already shifting ways of thinking and practice towards creating sustainability. Early dialogues with sustainability experts and organisations were central in understanding mindsets and personal experiences and the research shows that individuals and their values, beliefs and motivations are essential in challenging the business-as-usual paradigm. Dialogues were further cultivated in three workshops conducted with a broad audience to explore the early research findings and to help refine the development of the main output of the research, SuCo. SuCo is a methodology to address innovation for sustainability that addresses both Sustainable Cultural and Operational transformations. In the latter stage of the research two organisations were approached to apply SuCo to better understand its validity and usability. SuCo addresses innovation for sustainability from a radical perspective to promote an approach towards sustainable cultures and outputs. It is a useful beginning to an ongoing and much needed dialogue about sustainable-oriented futures.