Assessing sustainable innovation: Towards the development of a self-diagnostic audit tool and its application to industrial activities

Abstract

This thesis develops a self-assessment model designed to support industrial companies in evaluating and enhancing their sustainable innovation practices. While sustainability is increasingly recognised as a strategic priority, many firms still lack accessible and structured tools to assess how their innovation efforts contribute to environmental, social, and economic objectives in an integrated way. The model introduced in this research is built around four strategic pillars, each encompassing key sustainability dimensions. It adopts a maturity-based approach, enabling organisations to situate their current practices, identify gaps, and define actionable trajectories for improvement. The tool was empirically validated and iteratively refined through three waves of qualitative interviews, involving eight representatives from industrial companies and one sustainability expert. This process led to progressive enhancements in clarity, applicability, and conceptual scope, including the integration of governance, value chain, and territorial impact considerations to better reflect industrial realities and strategic priorities. The findings highlight the role of self-assessment not only as a diagnostic mechanism, but also as a lever for cross-functional dialogue, strategic alignment, and organisational learning. They further underscore the demand for models that combine conceptual rigour with practical usability, particularly within SMEs that often lack dedicated sustainability resources. By bridging theoretical foundations with empirical insights, this thesis contributes to the literature on sustainable innovation and organisational assessment. It offers a tested and adaptable framework that enables industrial firms to embed sustainability into their innovation strategies in a structured, reflexive, and continuous manner. It also provides a foundation for future applications, including sectoral adaptations, comparative benchmarking, and longitudinal evaluation.