Eco-innovation using meso Eco-ideation Stimulation Mechanisms (ESM)

The environmental consequences of mass manufacturing and consumption require us to completely rethink the way we design, produce and consume. More than ever, to remain sustainable, companies need to eco-innovate, i.e. to develop and successfully market products or services with high environmental ambitions. Designing environmentally-friendly products is becoming crucial, but current eco-design methods lead to limited environmental gains, and the methods and tools developed to support the eco-innovation process remain unsatisfactory for manufacturers. To market products and services with a strong environmental ambition, beyond eco-design actions, an eco-innovation dynamic needs to be implemented. To achieve this, companies need to integrate the various dimensions of the system (environmental, social, technological, stakeholder) into their design process right from the upstream phases, along with a specific approach to generating "eco-innovative" ideas - eco-ideation.

It is with this approach in mind that we have focused this article on the development of a novel set of didactic and precise Eco-Innovation Stimulation Mechanisms (ESMs), exploring systemic dimensions of sustainability that have hitherto been little exploited, yet hold great promise. These mechanisms make it possible to move beyond the technical perimeter of the product alone, to eco-innovate more globally and more strongly towards new sustainable business models.

In the first part, after a reminder of the context relating to eco-innovation and eco-ideation, the notion of meso-mechanisms and the different dimensions to be explored in eco-innovation are described. In the second part, the structure of a meso-Mechanism for Stimulating Eco-ideation (MSE) is presented, with its application to the seven dimensions identified for eco-innovation, and the presentation of the associated sheets. The third part illustrates the application of an ESM sheet to a vacuum cleaner. A discussion on the use of these sheets, and more generally on future developments around the MSE concept, concludes this article.