Lead Innovation in Support of Sustainable Business Practice
Overview
This standard is about innovation and its role in the development of more sustainable business practice. This is about leading innovation in support of improvements relevant to an organisation’s product offering, business processes or business services: improvements that aim to address the social, economic or environmental factors that limit the sustainability of business practice.
The role described by this standard requires the identification of opportunities that have the potential of making business practice more sustainable. requires an ability to encourage and motivate others to identify and suggest possible innovations, and to foster a culture in which sustainability thinking is incorporated into innovation processes.
The standard also requires that any potential innovation opportunities are assessed and ranked according to feasibility and fully specified in terms of the improvements to be gained. The metrics to be used to measure success will need to be specified against sustainability objectives. Risk registers and contingency plans will also need to be created to support the innovation.
Finally, it requires that the proposed innovation is presented to decision makers to gain the support essential to its implementation.
This standard would be appropriate for:
Those responsible for leading innovation, identifying opportunities where innovation can be used to have a positive influence on sustainability through improvements to products, services or businesses processes. It is likely to apply to those who work in the field of product/service development.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
P1 identify the sustainability drivers for innovation and change
P2 identify the opportunities that innovation can provide in support of more sustainable business practice
P3 initiate an open organisational culture based on a shared understanding of the need for sustainability thinking, innovation and change
P4 motivate others to recognise innovation opportunities for more sustainable business practice
P5 specify the functional unit(s) to which the innovation is to apply
P6 apply techniques to translate sustainability drivers into innovation opportunities that provide sustainability benefits to functional unit(s)
P7 assess and rank innovation opportunities according to likely risks, benefits and resource requirements
P8 outline the improvements to sustainable business practice that can be delivered through proposed innovation opportunities
P9 specify the metrics to be used to measure the impact of proposed innovation against sustainability objectives
P10 develop a risk register and contingency plan in support of the implementation of proposed innovation opportunities
P11 gain approval and support for proposed innovation from decision makers
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
K1 the legislation, industry standards, circular economy and voluntary codes that support innovation
K2 what defines sustainable and unsustainable business practice for the organisation
K3 how innovation can support the economic, social and environmental principles of sustainability and sustainable business practice
K4 how to use the principles of sustainability to promote and drive innovation in support of more sustainable business practice
K5 the sustainability drivers faced by the organisation and by the industry/sector within which the organisation operates
K6 open organisational culture, how it is created and its value to innovation
K7 how to specify and use a functional unit in support of innovation
K8 how to specify and apply sustainability metrics to measure the impact of innovation
K9 innovation theory and practice including techniques for creativity, modelling, visioning and ideas capture
K10 how to encourage and motivate others in support of innovation
K11 how innovation can influence and support sustainable business practice
K12 how and why failed innovation ideas can support further innovation
K13 how to assess organisational capacity for innovation
K14 how to rank proposed innovations according to likely risks, benefits and resource requirements
K15 risk registers and contingency planning
K16 how to translate sustainability drivers into delivered benefits
K17 the techniques used to communicate innovation proposals
K18 how to deal with complex and unbounded problems
K19 how the concept of ‘cradle to cradle’ supports sustainable innovation
Scope/range
Sustainability drivers include:
1 economic
2 social and ethical
3 environmental
4 customer and stakeholder perception
Techniques include:
1 capital thinking
2 The Natural Step
3 lean thinking
4 sustainable design
5 life cycle thinking
6. circular economy
Risks and benefits include those:
1 internal to the organisation
2 external to the organisation
Resource requirements include:
1 people
2 finance
3 technology
4 knowledge
Improvements in:
1 technology
2 design
3 human/social well-being
4 resource efficiency
5 environmental conservation
6 waste minimisation/elimination