Abstract
Over a couple of centuries, technological innovations have produced an enormous beneficial change in man’s lifestyle and level of comfort. That outcome required the use of massive use of the earth’s natural resources. Wastes being a consequence of development, much pollution resulted in air, water and land. In the beginning the innovations were mainly about profit maximization, later they were also geared to resource use minimization. Sustainable development teaches an optimization that is supposed to provide economic benefits along with environmental protection and societal uplifting. This is the biggest challenge to innovation. Businesses and entrepreneurs are engaged and many innovations are happening especially in the product and process level. Much larger challenges remain in the bigger areas of concern such as drastic reduction of greenhouse gases, making non-fossil energy financially sound, approximating zero discharge, and solving problems of water quality and quantity.
“Some class of rash, even suicidal, risk taking is healthy for the economy—under the condition that not all people take the same risks and that these risks remain small and localized.”
— Nassim N. Taleb, in Antifragile
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Notes
- 1.
Schmidt-Bleek, F., http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol4iss1/editorial.schmidt-bleek.html (accessed 06-28-2015). In general, Factor 10 means we can increase our living standard by a factor X with only X/10 amount of resources used. Thus, if X is 2, the factor is 5; if it is the same, i.e., X = 1, the factor gives 1/10th of current resource utilization. Similarly, Factor 4 means that the same environmental impact can be achieved with 1/4th the current resource use.
- 2.
Clean Production Action, http://www.cleanproduction.org/static/ee_images/uploads/resources/EPR_ecodesign_Apr08.pdf (accessed, 7-1-2015)
- 3.
EluxMagazine, http://eluxemagazine.com/magazine/greenwashing/ and Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing. Also, a company in the USA, Terradata, compiles advertising claims of greenness by companies. Fraudulent claims are called greenwashing. They found that by and large about 99 % of the green claims on close examination fall apart.
- 4.
US Treasury—http://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf. Accessed 1 Jul 2015.
- 5.
Worldwatch Institute—http://www.worldwatch.org/fossil-fuel-and-renewable-energy-subsidies-rise
- 6.
Ridley, Matt, Fossil fuels will save the world (really), Wall Street Journal, Review Section, March 14–15, 2015, p.c1.
- 7.
The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/gallery/2014/jun/16/10-leading-sustainability-innovations. Accessed 26 Oct 2014.
- 8.
Source: Kelly, Julie (2015), The march of genetic food progress, Wall Street Journal, December 30, A13.
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Sikdar, S.K., Sengupta, D., Mukherjee, R. (2017). Sustainability and Innovation. In: Measuring Progress Towards Sustainability. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42719-5_2
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