Operationalizing Sustainability

Operationalizing Sustainability

by Pierre Massotte, Patrick Corsi
Released October 2015
Publisher(s): Wiley-ISTE
ISBN: 9781848218925

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

This book focuses on the emergence of the “science of sustainability” and the key concepts in making sustainability operational in an organization.

The authors discuss the methods, techniques and tools needed to manage the impact of sustainability and how these can be reformulated into business models and solutions for new growth and applications. They then move onto the reformulation of future thinking processes before ending by looking towards an approach for the measurement of sustainability and competitiveness.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Note to all Contributors
  5. Note to the Reader
  6. List of Acronyms
  7. Introduction
  8. PART 1: Sustainability: Toward the Unification of Some Underlying Principles and Mechanisms
    1. 1: Toward a Sustainability Science
      1. 1.1. Introduction
      2. 1.2. What does unification mean?
      3. 1.3. Coming back to sustainability: how many “sustainabilities”?
      4. 1.4. Sustainability: what kind of unification? An integration issue?
      5. 1.5. What kind of paradigm do we have to integrate?
      6. 1.6. The issue and the implementation of a new dimension
      7. 1.7. Extensions of the concept
    2. 2: Sustainability in Complex Systems
      1. 2.1. Preamble: theories of interconnected systems
      2. 2.2. Analysis of feedback phenomena in an assembly manufacturing cell
      3. 2.3. Application to complex systems: quantitative characteristics of a deterministic chaos
      4. 2.4. General considerations about interactions in networked organizations
      5. 2.5. Role of feedback in mimicry and ascendancy over others
      6. 2.6. Network theory: additional characteristics due to their new structure
      7. 2.7. Simplexification
      8. 2.8. Convergences in network theory
    3. 3: Extension: From Complexity to the Code of Thought
      1. 3.1. The code of thought: effects of cognition and psyche in global sustainability
      2. 3.2. Is sustainability the only technological and technocratic approach?
      3. 3.3. The three laws of sustainability: prediction and anticipation in complex systems
      4. 3.4. Consequence: toward a new dimension
      5. 3.5. Conclusion
      6. 3.6. Indicators for monitoring the EU sustainable development strategy
  9. PART 2: Operationalization: Methods, Techniques and Tools – the Need to Manage the Impact
    1. 4: From Context to Knowledge: Building Decision-making Systems
      1. 4.1. Introduction
      2. 4.2. How about obtaining a sustainable knowledge?
      3. 4.3. Preliminary consideration: the nature of the problems encountered in test and diagnosis
      4. 4.4. Preamble: basic concepts for creating knowledge
      5. 4.5. Retroduction and abduction
      6. 4.6. Deduction and induction
      7. 4.7. The development of a relational reasoning graph
      8. 4.8. A complete integrated reasoning process
      9. 4.9. How can a computer analyze different types of reasoning?
      10. 4.10. Applications
    2. 5: From Context to Knowledge: Basic Methodology Review
      1. 5.1. Application of abduction and retroduction to create knowledge
      2. 5.2. Analysis and synthesis as modeling process
      3. 5.3. Background on empirical results: integration principles
      4. 5.4. A review and comparison of some common approaches: TRIZ and C-K theory
    3. 6: From Knowledge to Context and Back: The C-K Theory and Methodology
      1. 6.1. Introduction
      2. 6.2. A primer on C-K theory
      3. 6.3. On the nature of the knowledge space
      4. 6.4. On the nature of the concept space
      5. 6.5. Discussing the theory
      6. 6.6. Some differentiating points and benefits of C-K theory
      7. 6.7. On fielding C-K theory in organizations
      8. 6.8. A summary on C-K theory
      9. 6.9. A short glossary on C-K theory
      10. 6.10. Links with knowledge management
      11. 6.11. Example on a specific futuristic conceptual case: “a man who can travel through time”
      12. 6.12. Methodological findings
  10. PART 3: Reformulating the Above Into Business Models and Solutions for New Growth and Applications
    1. 7: Principles and Methods for the Design and Development of Sustainable Systems
      1. 7.1. Introduction
      2. 7.2. How to go further?
      3. 7.3. Examples of methods and learning related to complex adaptive systems
      4. 7.4. First example: crisis management
      5. 7.5. Second example: urban organizations
      6. 7.6. Third example: education and career evolution
      7. 7.7. A review of survival, resilience and sustainability concepts
      8. 7.8. Methodologies in sustainability
      9. 7.9. Resilience: methodology
      10. 7.10. Information system sustainability
      11. 7.11. Application: managing the “skill mismatch” in a company
      12. 7.12. Sustainability of the organizations in a company
      13. 7.13. Conclusions
    2. 8: Toward the Mass Co-design: Why is Social Innovation so Attractive?
      1. 8.1. Introduction
      2. 8.2. How can we define innovation and social innovation?
      3. 8.3. Sustainability: how can we position social innovation?
      4. 8.4. Social innovation examples
      5. 8.5. A contextual change in society
      6. 8.6. Basic concepts and mechanisms
      7. 8.7. The principle of circularity: a paradigm shift
      8. 8.8. Generalization: how to turn back time
      9. 8.9. Problems of technological evolution
      10. 8.10. Evolution: application to cellular networks
      11. 8.11. Conclusions: the new sustainable environment
    3. 9: On Integrating Innovation and CSR when Developing Sustainable Systems
      1. 9.1. The new Smartphones: a tool for an inclusive society
      2. 9.2. Innovation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) behaviors
      3. 9.3. Integrating business objectives (CBO) and corporate social responsibility (SCR)
      4. 9.4. Lessons gained from this study case: toward a citizen democracy
      5. 9.5. Conclusion on crowd and social approaches
  11. PART 4: Reformulating Future Thinking: Processes and Applications
    1. 10: Sustainability Engineering and Holism: Thinking Conditions are a Must
      1. 10.1. Introduction to holism
      2. 10.2. Toward a holistic company
      3. 10.3. Culture: on what positive factors can we rely?
      4. 10.4. Sustainability: a framework
      5. 10.5. Application: holonic industrial systems
      6. 10.6. Consequences
    2. 11: Sustainable Cognitive Engineering: Brain Modeling; Evolution of a Knowledge Base
      1. 11.1. Introduction
      2. 11.2. Sustainable cognition: definition and concepts
      3. 11.3. Concepts and “slippage” needs: effects related to new generations
      4. 11.4. Basic structure of our brain: a probabilistic approach
      5. 11.5. Application and probabilistic reasoning in updating a knowledge base: a more sustainable model
      6. 11.6. Sustainable cognition: brain structure, understanding micro-to-macro links
      7. 11.7. More recent developments
      8. 11.8. Detection of novelties through adaptive learning and fractal chaos approaches
      9. 11.9. Neuro computing: new opportunities provided by quantum physics
      10. 11.10. Applications
      11. 11.11. Quantum physics: impact on future organizations
    3. 12: Brain and Cognitive Computing: Where Are We Headed?
      1. 12.1. State of the art
      2. 12.2. Achievements: is neuroscience able to explain how to perform sustained assumptions and studies?
      3. 12.3. Artificial brain: evolution of the simulation models
      4. 12.4. Examples of challenges to be well controlled
  12. PART 5: Towards an Approach to the Measurement of Sustainability and Competitivity
    1. 13: On Measuring Sustainability
      1. 13.1. Introduction
      2. 13.2. Some basic criteria specific to the new “Sustainable” era
      3. 13.3. What are the nature and limits of the new paradigm, in terms of sustainability evolution?
      4. 13.4. A reminder about competitivity and sustainability properties
      5. 13.5. Synthesis: the present dimensions of a production system
      6. 13.6. An under-assessed value: time
      7. 13.7. Application and results
      8. 13.8. Two new dimensions: thought and information within network theory
      9. 13.9. Synthesis: cognitive advances provided by the new exchange and communication tools
      10. 13.10. Consequences and characteristics linked to a global network notion
      11. 13.11. Back to the code of matter: contributions to “Simultaneous Time” and “Network Theory”
      12. 13.12. Application of quantum interactions
      13. 13.13. Sustainability: how to widen the scope of competitiveness indicators?
      14. 13.14. Conclusion
      15. 13.15. Social interactions and massively multiplayer online role playing games
  13. General Conclusion – Where Are We Now?
  14. Bibliography
  15. Index
  16. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: Operationalizing Sustainability
  • Author(s): Pierre Massotte, Patrick Corsi
  • Release date: October 2015
  • Publisher(s): Wiley-ISTE
  • ISBN: 9781848218925