Engineering and technology management for sustainable business development: Introductory remarks on the role of technology and regulation

Technology has a crucial role in fulfilling the promise of sustainable development whether as technological change or as a choice set at a given point in time. Interestingly, despite this fact, the debate is often centered on economic aspects such as the business case for sustainability. Conversely, if a firm pursues sustainable development activities initially based on purely altruistic motives, their reputation might improve since at least some customers have a positive willingness to pay for certain reputational characteristics. Again, such a scenario leads to the basic assumption of the firm acting altruistically and without accruing benefits to themselves is thus contradicted. The technology and innovation management literature has developed several concepts that are indispensable for understanding the role of technology for sustainable business development. Amongst these are radical and incremental innovation.