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Intentional Design for Diversity as Pathway to Scalable Sustainability Impact

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Innovation for Sustainability

Abstract

If a company aims to contribute to a better world it wants to achieve positive sustainability impact on a large scale. It should then foresee that this large, up till global, scale includes many different and often interconnected manifestations. The authors in this chapter discuss a design approach that takes these different manifestations and connections into account from the start. The resulting architecture for the innovation (product, service and business model) is then more adaptive towards different requirements and settings. This positively affects the scalability for implementation and thus impact in multiple markets. The authors also discuss the implications for the management approach needing to be in line with this design approach, in particular regarding goal setting and level of (de)centralisation. They encourage practitioners as well as researchers to further explore this alignment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Department of Design Engineering, Design for Sustainability, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Wouter C. Kersten, Jan Carel Diehl & Jo M. L. van Engelen

  2. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Jo M. L. van Engelen

Authors
  1. Wouter C. Kersten
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  2. Jan Carel Diehl
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  3. Jo M. L. van Engelen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wouter C. Kersten .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Nancy Bocken

  2. Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland

    Paavo Ritala

  3. Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland

    Laura Albareda

  4. Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands

    Robert Verburg

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Kersten, W.C., Diehl, J.C., van Engelen, J.M.L. (2019). Intentional Design for Diversity as Pathway to Scalable Sustainability Impact. In: Bocken, N., Ritala, P., Albareda, L., Verburg, R. (eds) Innovation for Sustainability. Palgrave Studies in Sustainable Business In Association with Future Earth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97385-2_16

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