CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
Sustainable Innovation 11
‘State of the Art’ in Sustainable Innovation & Design
16th International Conference
24th – 25th October 2011
Farnham Castle
Farnham UK
Background
The Western world continues to face economic uncertainties whilst a number of Asian and other economies are growing significantly. There is a sense of the shifting of the global socio-economic power base from the West to the East. However, climate change, energy security, water scarcity, food crisis and resource shortages continue to pose challenges that companies will need to recognise and adapt to, if they are to survive and prosper in the future. At present opportunities to cut costs are top of the agenda, however opportunities for technological and product/service innovation still exist. The question is how we gear those opportunities to the design, development and commercialisation of more sustainable solutions. We now need to design and implement new systems to bring the low carbon, resource efficient technologies, products, services to the mainstream market. It is essential that better networks are established that link-up role players in the ‘sustainable innovation system’ to move ideas more effectively from the lab through R&D to customers. New sustainable business models need to be created and switched-on but there will be trade-offs. For example, the growing internet economy is providing considerable opportunities for more dematerialised and low carbon solutions but is using significant amounts of energy and materials – therefore, the relative environmental, social and benefits pluses and minuses of e-commerce still need to be better understood.
There is a strong feeling that discussion has now moved from ‘why to do’ sustainable innovation and design to ‘how to’ make it happen both at macro and micro levels! Sustainable Innovation 11 will address this paradigm shift with ‘state of the art’ visions, thinking, research and solutions.
Concept
Sustainable Innovation 11 will provide a platform to discuss the opportunities and challenges related to sustainable innovation, technology, product and service design and development. Sustainable Innovation 11 will include invited and refereed papers from academics, consultants, entrepreneurs, investors, technology providers, designers, sustainability, environment and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) managers as well as other business functions. The event will be a unique learning experience, networking space and will provide opportunities for blue-sky thinking. Delegates will come globally from large companies, entrepreneurs, as well as academia, government and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The conference is supported by an international Advisory Board.
Conference topics
Sustainable Innovation 11 welcomes conceptual and research-based papers related to the ‘state of the art’ in sustainable innovation, technology, product and service design and development. Papers focused on sustainable innovation related to the following topics are welcomed:
- Radical Change
- Product-service systems (PSS)
- Market Transformation
- Sustainable technologies
- Sustainable Consumption & Production
- Supply chain management
- Low carbon economy
- Innovation processes
- Product policy
- Organisational dimensions
- Sustainable procurement
- Management systems
- New business models
- Tools & methodologies
- Collaborations and partnerships
- Case studies
Benefits
Sustainable Innovation 11 will provide a range of benefits to speakers and delegates:
- Unique: forum for new ideas and concepts
- Leading-edge: presentations from key international researchers, practioners and policy-makers
- Content: new research, results and thinking
- Networking: opportunities to meet business, government and academia
- Track-record: over 1900 delegates from over 50 countries have attended previous conferences in the series
Submission details
Conference papers: please email, fax or post an abstract of 500 words describing your proposed paper by 31st March 2011. The abstract will then be sent to the Advisory Board for evaluation and authors will be given feedback by the end of April 2011. The highest rated abstracts will be invited to prepare a paper and present at the conference. Please only submit abstracts if you have budgets to attend the conference.
Contact
For more information on Sustainable Innovation 11 please contact:
Martin Charter, Director,
The Centre for Sustainable Design,
University for the Creative Arts, UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 1252 892772
Fax: + 44 (0) 1252-892747
Email: mcharter@ucreative.ac.uk
Website: www.cfsd.org.uk
