Authors (in alphabetical order): Rosa Ballardini (University of Lapland), Corinna Casi (University of Lapland), Esko Hakanen (Aalto University), Anna Leinonen (VTT), Jaakko Siltaloppi (Tampere University) and Katri Valkokari (VTT)
The development and effective implementation of innovations that enable more sustainable solutions often require collaboration among multiple partners. These new forms of knowledge co-production create a challenge to the management of knowledge production processes, innovation ecosystems and intellectual property rights. This blog post presents the research results and models developed in the ValueBioMat project to promote sustainable innovations. At the beginning, we will discuss issues related to building trust and open communication, which are important in the early stages of the innovation process. Then we turn our attention to the end of the process and the questions of innovations exploitation and distribution in ways that promote collaboration.
Fostering multistakeholder collaboration in innovation development
Researchers often use the term collective action to refer to the process where people work together toward a shared goal. Our collaborative efforts toward a more sustainable future are an example of a process relying on collective action. The reality is often complex and what is preferred depends on who you are asking, even if we agree to search for sustainable innovations through collective action.
Biocomposites provide a good example of the complex issues related to collective action in making plastics more sustainable.[1] At first glance, biocomposites appear an ideal example of an innovation improving sustainability: they can be produced from side streams otherwise ending up in waste or incineration, they have good mechanical properties that fit different use cases, and they can be used to replace fossil-based raw materials in the plastics value chains. However, as our findings indicate (Mikola, 2023), not everyone agrees with this view. Biocomposites often necessitate changes to the recycling processes currently designed with fossil-based plastics in mind, and this is one of the main arguments questioning their applicability. But as long as the actual recycling rates remain low and much of the plastic waste ends up in incineration instead of being recycled into new materials, the difficulty in recycling is a moot point for avoiding biocomposites. Instead, it demonstrates the challenges in setting the shared goal for guiding our collaborative efforts and collective action.
Our recent research (Hakanen et al., 2025) has shown that new technologies, particularly blockchain, can significantly support collective action.
While blockchains are best known for enabling cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, our research illustrates that blockchain technology can be utilized far beyond its typical use for digital currencies. Instead, it can create a system enabling digital commons—an online community where everyone can identify and verify each other’s actions. This digital system can foster trust and coordination among people who have never met. Such transparency makes it easier for people from all over the world to collaborate effectively and reliably.
These digital coordination systems can strongly encourage participation and help individuals feel part of a larger community, even when they are only interacting online.
Such improvements drive sustainability initiatives by promoting open communication and sharing knowledge among all stakeholders, including businesses, consumers, and governments. Enhancing communication serves two important purposes. Firstly, it helps identify and address information gaps that hinder sustainable and efficient resource use in which waste is minimized, and materials are reused as much as possible (Serna-Guerrero et al., 2022). Secondly, it ensures that the goals we set truly reflect the objectives of all involved parties. This aspect was a key finding in our recent study (Hakanen et al., 2024). Our findings demonstrated that only through active, meaningful discussions among all parties—be it residents, business owners, or environmental experts—can we truly understand what we need to achieve and how to do it.
Boosting innovation diffusion via a new open-source type of license
In the other end of the innovation process, it is important to ensure that the exploitation and distribution of innovation is done in a way that fosters collaboration. In this respect, our research has shown that intellectual property rights (IPR) are both central and problematic. On the one hand, IPR incentivise innovation by creating an exclusive, temporary and relative monopoly-like set of rights for innovators. As such, IPR can facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing, for example by codifying knowledge and reducing uncertainty (Chesbrough, 2003). On the other hand, the very nature of such rights can also limit collaboration, for example by creating conflicts over IP sharing or value appropriation, limiting sequential innovation, and slowing down the transfer and diffusion of innovations needed to achieve systemic sustainability impacts (Gassmann et al., 2006).
To overcome these challenges and enhance the opportunities for sustainable innovation, we propose a new type of open-source license, the environmentally sustainable open source (ESOS) license (Siltaloppi and Ballardini 2023).
The ESOS license builds on the existing frameworks used by user- and community-centred innovation models, such as the Free and Open Source (FLOSS) licensing model. FLOSS licences are based on the idea of a copyleft licence, whereby copyright holders (e.g. of the code or other work) open their IPR through open-source licences that grant a royalty-free right to ‘run, modify, distribute and redistribute’ modified versions of their work (Välimäki, 2005). This is a way of licensing IPR that allows multiple users to collaborate by imposing certain conditions that allow the software to be freely copied, modified and redistributed.
The ESOS licence utilizes this open-source logic but has environmental sustainability as its driving principle.
This means that inventors of ‘environmentally sustainable innovations’ could license their innovations under an ESOS licence, allowing third parties to freely copy, use, make, modify and distribute the innovations, as long as these innovations are also used for research or development of ‘environmentally sustainable innovations’. The new model could provide the legal basis for systemic collaboration for sustainable innovation by supporting the formation of collaborative arrangements based on non-hierarchical governance structures for sustainability-oriented innovation activities. Consequently, the model could trigger cooperation by enabling the sharing of know-how and training capacities, thus promoting co-specialisation among heterogeneous actors.
Concluding remarks – how to enable innovations towards sustainability
We hope our findings will benefit both policymakers and practitioners involved in sustainable innovations. For companies participating in making plastics more sustainable, our research supports the creation of viable methods for knowledge co-production and sharing. Furthermore, for policymakers, these findings are crucial for designing policy tools that promote the transition toward sustainability.
If you are interested to hear more register to our end seminar 6th June 2025!
The agenda and registration link: Activities – ValueBioMat
[1] Biocomposites are plastics that contain different fillers that are of renewable origin. Most often these fillers are a waste stream from various production processes, such as pulp and paper mills.
References
Chesbrough H.W. (2003), The logic of open innovation: Managing intellectual property, California Management Review, 45 (3), pp. 33-58
Gassmann, P. Sandmeier, C.H. Wecht, (2006). Extreme customer innovation in the front-end: Learning from a new software paradigm, International Journal of Technology Management, 33 (1), pp. 46-66
Hakanen, E., Eloranta, V., Shaw, C., & Töytäri, P. (2025). Signaling collective action in ecosystems. Academy of Management Perspectives. 39 (1), pp. 22-43. https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2023.0101
Hakanen, E., Wolff, J., Eloranta, V., & Shaw, C. (2024). Self-Regulation and Code of Conduct in the Community: Four Pilots on Utilising Decentralisation Technologies for Improving Sustainability and Collective Governance. In B. Díaz Díaz, S. O. Idowu, R. Schmidpeter, N. E. Nedzel, M. Del Baldo, & I. Guia Arraiano (Eds.), Building Global Societies Towards an ESG World: A Sustainable Development Goal in the 21st Century. Springer Cham.
Serna-Guerrero, R., Ikonen, S., Kallela, O., & Hakanen, E. (2022). Overcoming data gaps for an efficient circular economy: A case study on the battery materials ecosystem. Journal of Cleaner Production, 374, 133984. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.133984
Stallman R. (2002). Free Software Definition, Free Software, free society: selected essays of Richard M. Stallman, GNU Press, Boston, MA.
Siltaloppi, J., & Ballardini, R. (2023). Promoting Systemic Collaboration for Sustainable Innovation through Intellectual Property Rights. Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management, 11(1), Article 100200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcom.2023.100200
Valimäki M. (2005). The rise of open-source licensing. A challenge to the use of intellectual property in the software industry. Turre Publishing.