International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 

About: International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development is an academic journal published by Inderscience Publishers. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sustainability & Sustainable development. It has an ISSN identifier of 1740-8822. Over the lifetime, 387 publications have been published receiving 4757 citations. The journal is also known as: IJISD.

Business Cases for Sustainability: The Role of Business Model Innovation for Corporate Sustainability

Abstract: A considerable body of literature deals with the creation of economic value while increasing corporate environmental and social performance. Some publications even focus on the business case for sustainability which aims at increasing corporate economic value through environmental or social measures. The existence of a business case for sustainability is, however, mostly seen as an ad hoc measure, a supplement to the core business, or simply a coincidence. As a contrast, this paper argues that business model innovations may be required to support a systematic, ongoing creation of business cases for sustainability. A framework for business model innovation is proposed as a means to strategically create business cases on a regular basis as an inherent, deeply integrated element of business activities.

Impeding ecological sustainability through selective moral disengagement

Abstract: The present paper documents the influential role played by selective moral disengagement for social practices that cause widespread human harm and degrade the environment. Disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables people to pursue detrimental practices freed from the restraint of self-censure. This is achieved by investing ecologically harmful practices with worthy purposes through social, national, and economic justifications; enlisting exonerative comparisons that render the practices righteous; use of sanitising and convoluting language that disguises what is being done; reducing accountability by displacement and diffusion of responsibility; ignoring, minimising, and disputing harmful effects; and dehumanising and blaming the victims and derogating the messengers of ecologically bad news. These psychosocial mechanisms operate at both the individual and social systems levels.

Education for sustainability: the role of capabilities in guiding university curricula

Abstract: While pressing sustainability issues climb international and national agendas, most Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have yet to respond in a systematic and coherent way in terms of embedding sustainability concepts, values and skills into the student learning experience. The paper reviews some schemas and views in the Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) debate regarding what constitutes 'capability' in this area, and finds an emerging pattern of broad consensus. Whilst some see sustainability as implying a major challenge for the purposes and nature of university education as a whole, it is still necessary to indicate curriculum ideas that any HEI can begin to implement, ideally as a precursor to deeper change. Between the undesirable extremes of curriculum prescription and emergence, the authors suggest some indicative schemas that might help academics design curricula for ESD. Further, a model of staged learning and change linking institutional change with deepening student experience is suggested, based on current work at RMIT and the University of Plymouth.

Integrated sustainability assessment: what is it, why do it and how?

Abstract: This paper describes a new conceptualisation of sustainability assessment as an integrative and active process at the science-policy-society interface and its implementation as exemplified in case studies within the Methods and Tools for Integrated Sustainability Assessment (MATISSE) project. Integrated Sustainability Assessment (ISA) is defined within the MATISSE project as a cyclical, participatory process of scoping, envisioning, experimenting and learning through which a shared interpretation of sustainability for a specific context is developed and applied in an integrated manner in order to explore solutions to persistent problems. ISA is strategic, sustainability-oriented, constructive and potentially transformative. Its key role is to explore the opportunity-creation and problem-solving potential of framing contexts other than those in place, such as alternative institutions, technologies, spatial and temporal arrangements, price relations and associated policy regimes.

Perceptions and adaptation strategies of the tourism industry to climate change: the case of Finnish nature-based tourism entrepreneurs

Abstract: Climate change-related processes have emerged as major issues in tourism development and management, particularly with respect to nature-based tourism, which is seen as especially vulnerable and is the sector of the industry that is the main focus of this study. The aim of the paper is to identify the perceptions and adaptation strategies of Finnish nature-based tourism entrepreneurs on climate change. The case study was conducted by interviewing nature-based tourism entrepreneurs in northern Finland and the Finnish Lake District, south east Finland. In general, the entrepreneurs were aware of the issue of global climate change. However, half of the interviewees did not believe that the phenomenon actually exists and will influence the region's tourism industry in the future. The scepticism towards the climate change may explain the fact that there were almost no adaptation strategies. However, other adaptation mechanisms were used to cope with the 'normal' weather variation and market changes.