Managing Sustainable Innovations - TUHH Institute for Technology & Innovation Management, Hamburg · part of my Technology Management MBA · study notes for revision.
This module asks a question that’s easy to say and hard to do: how do companies innovate in a way that’s good for the planet and society - and still works as a business? It starts from what “sustainability” actually means (beyond the buzzword), builds up the strategies and tools to make innovation sustainable, and then gets into the human side - embedding it in an organisation, leading the change, and the kind of leadership it takes.
The through-line is the triple bottom line: a sustainable business has to balance economic, social and environmental performance at once - for people alive today and for future generations. That balance is genuinely a “wicked problem”, full of trade-offs, and most of the course is about navigating it honestly.
These are study notes for revision, with the cases (Toyota, Patagonia, Carlsberg, Interface) used to make the ideas concrete.
1 · What Sustainability Means
Beyond the buzzword: the triple bottom line (economy, society, environment), the Brundtland definition, inter- and intra-generational justice, why sustainability is a “wicked problem”, the need to decouple growth from harm (IPAT), and how you even measure it.
2 · The Three Sustainability Strategies
The three routes to decoupling - eco-efficiency (do more with less), eco-effectiveness (close the loop, cradle-to-cradle and the circular economy), and sufficiency (consume less and differently) - their strengths, limits, the rebound effect, and how to combine them.
3 · Sustainable Innovation
What actually makes an innovation sustainable (not every innovation is), how it differs from conventional innovation (the double-externality problem), and how the innovation strategy and Stage-Gate process change when you design for the whole life cycle.
4 · Sustainability within the Organization
Embedding sustainability inside a company: moving from compliance to a driver of value, the key competencies people need, and the culture and structures that let sustainability stick rather than stay a side project.
5 · Sustainable Business Models
Redesigning how a company creates, delivers and captures value sustainably: sustainable business-model archetypes, circular and product-as-a-service models, and the shift from selling more stuff to delivering value with less.
6 · Sustainable Change Management
Sustainability is a change problem as much as a technical one: why people resist, structured change models, and how to lead a sustainability transformation - with the Patagonia and Carlsberg cases as guides.
7 · Leadership for Sustainability
The leadership it takes: the mindset and competencies of sustainability leaders, leading with purpose, and a personal compass - Ikigai - for aligning what you’re good at, love, can be paid for, and what the world needs.
8 · Reporting & the Case-Study Method
Proving it credibly: sustainability reporting frameworks (GRI, the EU’s CSRD/ESRS, integrated reporting), the greenwashing trap - and a practical method for cracking a sustainability case study, which is how this course is examined.