IS THIS SYSTEM ECO-INNOVATIVE? A CASE-BASED WORKSHOP

Eco-innovation is a challenging topic for companies that are expected to promote the design of products and services for a sustainable society. Early phases of eco-innovation processes and more specifically eco-ideation (the generation phase of promising ideas) still needs efficient supportive methods. This paper empirically challenges a previous proposition of eight eco-ideation stimulation mechanisms (ESMs) thanks to a case-based activity. An explorative workshop on the examination of 16 supposed eco-innovative cases was conducted with four groups of 30 environmental experts. One objective of this workshop for participants was to define, individually and collectively, a way to label eco-innovation cases. This paper presents (1) the selection and characterization of top and flop cases in groups (2) an inductive characterization of eco-innovation regarding cases (3). This arises new perspectives for eco-innovation practice, for instance the consideration of systemic and mass effects.