Mapping sustainable value for new technology – developing a configurable approach for exploring potential exploitation opportunities

This paper discusses how technology exploitation opportunities can be explored in greater depth by bringing together existing methods for the identification of sustainable value and the assessment of new technology into a practical and configurable approach for industry. There is a need for practical support in technology commercialisation and for approaches that make a clear contribution to long term industrial sustainability. The challenges in the adoption and use of management tools and the significance of industrial/academic collaboration in developing and applying them is also discussed. The matching process between technology and market is a dynamic ‘balancing’ act, so breaking down a technology offering into several parts and considering how the commercial, environmental and social importance of these parts may change for differing markets and applications is a useful exercise for structuring further development actions. Such approaches based on mapping templates can be brought together in a practical form for effective use by industry. An iterative approach was taken based on combining several existing tools and a multicompany workshop was used to help to explore how useful the combinations were in practice. The workshop resulted in significant learning and a framework for selecting the most appropriate tool combinations in particular situations has been proposed for future applications. The tool templates are easy to apply and help to structure and guide discussion, promote a consensual way forward and lead to practical action plans. The organisational impact and process learning is discussed, along with implications for improving and further testing of the methods. This paper focuses on a small number of companies but has generic learning points for academics wishing to support industry in making more holistic assessments of technological opportunities. This practical approach to mapping sustainable value for new technological opportunities engages both commercial and technical stakeholders in a wider evaluation of a technology and provides templates for recording tangible outputs from the discussion. Combining sustainability and technology management related tools enables a cross disciplinary exploration of exploitation opportunities and can make a positive contribution towards the development of technological innovations bringing sustainable value to organisations and the overall industrial system.