Innovation and Sustainable Technology

Sustainability's imperative of economic development in tandem with social advancement and environmental protection is now increasingly accepted, despite ongoing uncertainties about its practical implications for the technologies, products and practices of the future. The challenge ahead is to turn sustainability imperatives into a launchpad for innovation to deliver the sustainable technologies and products of the future, which reflect tommorrow's - rather than yesterday's - balance between economic, environmental and social imperatives.

Exploratory research at Curtin focuses on how sustainability can drive innovation in different industry sectors. In the context of minerals processing, it turned out to be effective to consider innovation at operational, design and technology platforms, each having their own timescales and improvement potentials. While much more research is required, there is a clear indication that innovation should increasingly focus on the fate of materials (and products), their environmental compatibility and resource intensity.

With regard to the practical implementation of sustainable technology development, a distinction is useful between an incremental path (where sustainability considerations enrich the existing innovation processes) and a transformative path (where sustainability considerations redefine the innovation processes). Curtin's research interest pertain both to both paths, through for example work on sustainability enhancement tools for process and product development (incremental path) and redefining sustainable futures for industry sectors and their technology bases (transformative path).