On May 22, 2023, NordicHouse, in cooperation with SPCleantech, conducted a workshop for registered companies on “Innovation and Sustainable Development-Oriented Entrepreneurship (SOIE)”. During this workshop, NordicHouse shared the experience and knowledge gained during the EU project “IMPACT – Building Value-Based Innovation Cultures for Sustainable Business Impact”. NordicHouse cooperates with a consortium of European universities and companies that have been implementing this EU project for 3 years.
Most companies and organizations in the EU are asked to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals as part of their mission and innovation management. Many have clearly adopted these strategies, but few have established proper practices in their organizational culture and manage innovation based on corporate sustainability values. As the IMPACT project brings together researchers and practitioners of higher education institutions and companies across Europe, it enables participants to provide better teaching materials, educational methods and best practices for educators, trainers, managers and facilitators.
During the workshop, the organizers and participating companies exchanged experiences and knowledge on how to translate sustainable development strategies into a culture of innovation. The discussion during the workshop made us aware of the importance of redefining cultural routines, facilitating the creation of ideas and innovations in value-based and sustainability-oriented companies, integrating and engaging various stakeholders, and promoting a culture of value-based innovation with a positive impact. We also learned that companies should focus and promote value-based innovation, i.e.
The workshop was a practice-based, sustainability-oriented and results-driven meeting aimed at increasing the capacity and effectiveness of companies to train and teach Sustainable Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SOIE). The ambition of the workshop is to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship based on the values of corporate sustainability and to facilitate cultural changes across the organization towards more sustainable innovation processes. With a clear focus on sustainable development, the workshop made a unique contribution to successfully translating the new European growth strategy outlined in the Green Deal into an innovative educational program and business practice.
The workshop was based on teaching and coaching methods from the SOIE toolkit, which includes a module on sustainable innovation practices for professional development.
During the workshop, the following topics were presented for participating companies:
- Good practice examples: database with concrete examples and best practices of enhancing business sustainability through cultural development (e.g. contribution to SGD). This database covers internal practices, integration of external stakeholders, strategic development and implementation of sustainable business model benchmarks and impact management.
- Facilitating methods: Sustainable Innovation Practice Toolkit (SUIT I) on how to best engage internal and external stakeholders in innovation activities, but also to jointly review and redefine cultural routines, hidden values and hidden assumptions. This compendium contains tools to facilitate diagnosing and modeling sustainable business as well as collecting, aggregating and providing information and knowledge in order to improve results in the field of sustainable development.
- SOIE teaching and coaching methods: Building on experiences and insights from previous knowledge alliance projects involving IMPACT partner organizations (such as TACIT and GAMIFY), the project repurposes educational methods and develops new techniques for actively debating and learning facts about sustainable development, challenges and solutions.
