Olivier Joffre

How to reconcile business with sustainable development: an innovation approach

Purpose – Sustainable development has first been perceived as a hindrance to economic growth. Today, the opposition between innovation and sustainable development is less evident. The purpose of this paper is to explore the potential complementarities that could emerge between innovation strategies and sustainable development.Design/methodology/approach – As a conceptual paper, this article aims at developing propositions.Findings – Sustainable development constitutes a new data of the macro‐environmental context, likely to modify the competing industries and systems in which companies evolve. In return, they represent many opportunities that companies can seize to model their strategies. Within the framework of such an approach, innovation and sustainable development constitute engines of development which can get connected and virtuously feed themselves.Research limitations/implications – Because of the chosen research approach, the results lack generalisability. Therefore, academics are encouraged to f...