Responsible Research and Innovation Revisited: Aligning Product Development Processes with the Corporate Responsibility Agenda

It is well established that society faces some grand challenges ahead that have led to a call for more focus on sustainability and socially responsible business practices (European Commission 2010, 2012; Scherer and Palazzo 2011). It is now widely accepted that human-induced climate change is caused by production and consumption patterns that have emerged to meet society’s evolving needs (Unruh 2000; Foxon and Pearson 2006). There are increasing amounts of legislation to try to encourage more sustainable practices and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. For example, the 2008 United Kingdom (UK) Climate Change Act (UK Parliament 2008) states that “It is the duty of the Secretary of State to ensure that the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 is at least 80 % lower than the 1990 baseline” (p. 1). Other legislation is encouraging manufacturers to take back and recycle their products at the end of their useful lives.