Enhancing Sustainable Innovation by Design: an Approach to the Co-creation of Economic, Social and Environmental Value

The thesis introduces a new, flexible and easy-to-use methodological design approach to envisioning product-service systems able to create economic value for business, as well as social and environmental benefits for society. Such an approach has been developed to support business innovation projects, by finding a practical way of making ‘sustainability’ part of their design briefs. The approach proposed does not replace conventional eco-design practices: it is an instrument of different nature. It moves beyond the modification of products and their technological changes towards answers able to stimulate social innovation, and therefore to facilitate a radical transformation of industrially-oriented patterns of production and consumption. To elaborate on this theme, an iterative research approach has been used, one that moves from the theory currently available on how to produce and design sustainable product-service systems to new experimentation practices, and from these practices to a new, theoretical, contribution. The domain chosen for its application is digital networking and information communication technology, with a particular focus on the electronics and consumer electronics sectors in Western markets.