Re-envisioning innovation for sustainability

This chapter explores the concept of sustainability and its associated challenges within a mechatronic context. The primary aim is to promote critical thinking and innovation within an eco-mechatronics framing i.e. via an application of mechatronics that at its core works with Nature (rather than against it). Innovative technology per se is neither a force for good nor bad. However, eco-mechatronics permits a broader approach to innovation by considering socioenvironmental aspects as instrumental to improved performance, not mere “add ons”. Throughout this chapter, the authors tease out how innovation for sustainability can be so much more than merely doing “less bad” (e.g. fewer emissions or less waste) when we are capable of doing “more good”, for example, by improving the soil or capturing and regenerating energy that would otherwise have dissipated. While the authors do compare two potential braking systems within an eco-mechatronics framing, their goal is not to provide a tick box methodology or one size fits all answer but instead to provoke deeper questioning and reflection that enables mechatronic practitioners to sustainably innovate according to their own specific set of circumstances and challenges.