Operationalizing Sustainability

9On Integrating Innovation and CSR when Developing Sustainable Systems

In this chapter, our intent is to highlight the role of corporate practices and global strategies of a company, in the development of a sustainable society, through its own evolution.

To do this we will discuss three topics:

• – How can new technologies, which involve more and more people, change the whole population’s way of life?
• – From this example, how is it possible to better understand the role and use of innovation in order to get a more inclusive society?
• – The role and implementation of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) in a company to achieve the sustainability of both society and the company.

9.1. The new Smartphones: a tool for an inclusive society

Currently on planet Earth, there are over 6 billion people subscribed to a mobile internet device (MID) such as a PC, a Smartphone or a tablet. They are interconnected and therefore can communicate with each other all around the world. Through the Net, there is neither discrimination nor population segmentation.

With G4 technology, contactless applications will further diversify as data will be transferred faster. In parallel, MID prices will lower (e.g. Smartphones less than $100 each) and software applications will be cheap to download. Each human being is impacted by this evolution, which is like a social link bringing everyone together.

More specifically about the Smartphone, it remains easy to elaborate a study case showing how invasive a ...