Arnold, Marlen

Combat climate change - do open innovation methods help?

Aalborg

Abstract: Meanwhile a multiplicity of enterprises is accepting the challenge of climate change and is developing various solutions and activities to combat climate change or at least to mitigate its risks. Yet, sustainable development needs change and open innovation methods can enforce it. How can open innovation methods, such as stakeholder dialogues, (open) innovation workshops, ideas competitions, webcommunities and tool-kits, enable companies to find new and sustainable solutions and activities to combat climate change? This article addresses this question based on an empirical qualitative analysis of companies. The possibility to enlarge the knowledge base and to open perspectives in ad-hoc or continuous communication with consumers and stakeholders is a great advantage of open innovation methods for companies. This can open up corporate learning as well as responsible consumption. However, these open innovation methods have different dialogue orientations and different levels of participation and therefore diverse possibilities to support combating climate change. This study highlights the strengths and weaknesses of selected open innovation methods to combat climate change on the basis of an empirical analysis of 13 mainly German-based companies.