CONTINUOUS RELEVANCE & RESPONSIBILITY: INTEGRATION OF SUSTAINABILITY & EXCELLENCE VIA INNOVATION

Abstract

Sustainable Enterprise Excellence or SEE weds core elements of corporate governance, sustainability, and enterprise excellence with the goal of advancing organizational progress toward the asymptotic objective of being continuously relevant and responsible. There are many possible enablers of and approaches to SEE realization. Innovation is among such critical enablers so that the role of innovation in SEE and a process for embedding innovation in the enterprise are explored. Two types of innovation are especially relevant to sustainable enterprise excellence: innovation for sustainability and sustainable innovation. The first of these focuses on targets of innovation with sustainability at their core, particularly with respect to environmental or social dimensions of sustainability. The second of these, sustainable innovation, is concerned with creating a culture wherein innovation is native. Ten basic and ten advanced SEI enablers are identified and integrated and a method for embedding and assessing the maturity of these is provided, after which a simple assessment presentation approach is proposed.