How to Make Product Innovation Processes More Sustainable? A Literature Review

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 2,0, LMU Munich (Wirtschaftswissenschaften), language: English, abstract: This paper addresses the pressing and rapid shift toward greater sustainability in businesses due to the advanced stage of environmental degradation. The viability and competitiveness of a business is secured through sustainable product innovation development, which has been proven by the latest sustainable products and services. The term sustainability is precisely aligned with sustainable product innovation thinking and processes. In addressing this issue of product sustainability, I provide a concept for fostering sustainable innovation thinking and define certain sustainability criteria linked to each stage of the product innovation process. It has been shown that the reconciliation of sustainable criteria with the product innovation process is challenging. Limitations arising from sustainable product innovation development, such as greenwashing are discussed and reveal that the concept of sustainability has not been implemented properly in business practice so far. In particular, there is also a lack of scientific studies regarding the holistic approach to sustainable product innovations. Generally, fundamental innovation theories need to be improved by sustainability criteria, because keeping up with the sustainability trend will be one of the most challenging and important tasks in the future for businesses to maintain their competitiveness.