Reviews, action and learning on change management for ecodesign transition

Abstract

Corporate sustainability, which has become essential to most companies in the last decades, stipulates that environmental requirements should be incorporated into diverse business processes. To effectively integrate environmental aspects into product innovation processes, companies might have to significantly change some of the practices and habits of all the stakeholders involved and of the organisation. To complement the extensive literature on the (technical) “hard side of ecodesign”, this article explores the promising “soft side”, which considers company culture and human factors, by a multiple step literature review associated with a longitudinal action research in a large cosmetics company. Although a consistent prescriptive change model is still lacking in ecodesign literature, a strong convergence and complementarity is observed between the previous conclusions on ecodesign integration models and the emerging Transition Management approach designed for the sustainability issues faced by organisations. As a result, an “ecodesign transition framework” is proposed by combining a three-level systemic approach, considering both top-down planning and bottom-up innovation, with new types of interaction and dynamic cycles of action and learning, with a deep stakeholder management. This new framework was developed and positively applied to the company in a five-year experience to face the complex transition process, thus advancing the knowledge from social science for innovation and sustainability management challenges. Such approach could positively address change management issues and help companies evolve toward a more effective sustainable product innovation process, in the context of evolving business management practices that require progressive change and more human-based strategies.