Sustainable Innovation Cultures: 68 practices and methods for gaining competitive edge and impact

There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Similarly, it takes a whole culture to achieve sustainable innovation in a repeatable and reliable manner. So, how can companies and nonprofit organizations turn sustainability strategies into real-world practice? How can they innovate to gain a competitive edge while contributing to sustainable and regenerative development? And where should you as an innovation, sustainability or human resource manager begin?
In this first comprehensive work on sustainable innovation cultures, the authors show how organizational culture translates sustainability-related values into environmentally, socially and economically valuable outcomes. By aligning sustainability literacy with appropriate practices and mediating artefacts (including those of artificial intelligence), virtuous circles of targeted output, valuable outcomes and desired impacts can be created. Three stages of activity are crucial if an organization is to grow a sustainable innovation culture—namely conceiving, co-creating and cultivating. First understand and specify the organization’s values, tensions and values-action gaps, then co-create targeted interventions, and finally cultivate sustainable innovation practices and methods.
This framework and its practices and methods are based on a comprehensive literature review, expert interviews and ethnographic field studies in transformational companies across Europe with a global presence. Case studies and examples illustrate each of the 32 practices and 36 methods described in the book. The companion site offers extensive training, educational media and materials such as card sets, videos, podcasts and slide decks for practitioners and educators. Academic syllabi as well as certified educational materials and university modules are available on an open access basis.

Henning Breuer researches, teaches and consults in the fields of innovation management and business psychology. He is a professor of Business and Media Psychology at the Media University Berlin, founder of UXBerlin – Innovation Consulting, and has worked in executive education and consulting with universities and companies in Europe and the United States.
Since 2001, Henning has worked with multinational corporations, SMEs,public organisations and start-ups, providing consultancy services in the areas of sustainable innovation culture and business models, future scenarios and ethnographic stakeholder research. Henning has co-authored publications for journals, conferences and textbooks on values-based innovation management, sustainable business model design, gamification for innovators and entrepreneurs, and sustainable innovation cultures. As a visiting researcher and professor, he has worked at the University of Chile (Santiago) and Waseda University (Tokyo). He studied psychology, philosophy and law in Berlin and Tübingen, and received his PhD in psychology from the University of Magdeburg.

Kiril Ivanov has completed a doctorate at the Centre for Sustainability Management at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, with a dissertation focused on values-based and sustainable innovation. As a researcher at the Media University of Applied Sciences, he has contributed to EU-funded research projects on gamification, values-based innovation cultures and strategic foresight for sustainability. He teaches courses in innovation and entrepreneurship, business anthropology and gamification for organisations, while also collaborating with UXBerlin – Innovation Consulting on projects involving ethnography and values-based business development.