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This chapter explains how cocreation can be supported by establishing platforms, which provide knowledge, resources, and opportunities for local actors to come together in cocreation arenas. Platforms make it easy for local actors to connect, interact, and engage in productive joint activity. The chapter provides an overview of different types of platforms and describes their distinctive organizing logic, which includes mediating the relationship between different stakeholders, scaffolding their joint action, and leveraging their capacity for change. The chapter identifies important platform dynamics, such as attractor and amplifier effects, synergy, scaling, and social learning, that enable them to successfully support cocreation. Finally, the chapter discusses how platforms themselves can be designed to enhance these dynamics.

The sustainable transition towards the circular economy requires the effective use of artificial intelligence (AI) and information technology (IT) techniques. As the sustainability targets for 2030–2050 increasingly become a tougher challenge, society, company managers and policymakers require more support from AI and IT in general. How can the AI-based and IT-based smart decision-support tools help implementation of circular economy principles from micro to macro scales?

This chapter provides a conceptual framework about the current status and future development of smart decision-support tools for facilitating the circular transition of smart industry, focussing on the implementation of the industrial symbiosis (IS) practice. IS, which is aimed at replacing production inputs of one company with wastes generated by a different company, is considered as a promising strategy towards closing the material, energy and waste loops. Based on the principles of a circular economy, the utility of such practices to close resource loops is analyzed from a functional and operational perspective. For each life cycle phase of IS businesses – e.g., opportunity identification for symbiotic business, assessment of the symbiotic business and sustainable operations of the business – the role played by decision-support tools is described and embedding smartness in these tools is discussed.

Based on the review of available tools and theoretical contributions in the field of IS, the characteristics, functionalities and utilities of smart decision-support tools are discussed within a circular economy transition framework. Tools based on recommender algorithms, machine learning techniques, multi-agent systems and life cycle analysis are critically assessed. Potential improvements are suggested for the resilience and sustainability of a smart circular transition.

This chapter examines how implementation of SDG solutions can be improved through adaptive strategies. Many so-called blueprint strategies are inflexible during implementation and underestimate the importance fitting general goals and plans to shifting local needs and contexts. The chapter emphasizes the importance of identifying the specific types of dynamic challenges that will prompt the need for adaptation when implementing sustainability strategies. Adaptive cocreation provides a valuable framework for overcoming traps of various sorts that may block implementation. The problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) model is introduced as one approach to adaptation. PDIA is particularly valuable for achieving bottom-up integration of SDGs and projects. Finally, the chapter considers the importance of social learning as a strategy for collaborative adaptation.

Since the European Union’s (EU) Charter of Fundamental Rights became binding in 2009, data protection has attained the status of a fundamental right (Article 8) throughout the EU. This chapter discusses the relevance of data protection in the context of security. It shows that data protection has been of particular relevance in the German context – not only against the backdrop of rapidly evolving information technology, but also of the historical experiences with political regimes collecting information in order to oppress citizens.

In recent years, both academics and institutions have acknowledged the crucial role multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play in addressing the sustainability challenges, as formalized by the sustainable development goals (SDGs). Nevertheless, because of their extensiveness and their design as country-level targets, SDGs have proven challenging to operationalize at a firm level. This problem opens new and relevant avenues for research in international business (IB). This chapter attempts to frame the topic of extended value chain sustainability in the IB literature. In particular, it addresses a specific topic, that is, how sustainability and resilience-building practices interact in global value chains (GVCs). To do so, the present study develops the case of STMicroelectronics (ST), one of the biggest semiconductor companies worldwide.

Divestitures and other forms of organizational separation are not commonly associated with continuity and ongoing collaboration in inter-organizational relationships. Instead, separation is often equated with terminating relationships and gaining independence. Here, the authors argue that achieving separation does not require terminating relationships and that ongoing collaboration between separating entities may actually contribute to successful separation. The authors base this argument on the assertion that the objective of organizational separation is to achieve organizational autonomy for all entities involved and that separating entities can enable each other’s development of autonomy while remaining interdependent. The authors also discuss how collaborative separation may contribute to a range of benefits, as well as why it may nevertheless fail to emerge in practice. In this respect, the authors consider the relevance of ethical perspectives and emotional dynamics related to feelings of (dis)respect, (dis)trust, pride and shame. The authors conclude by discussing activities that may contribute to, and undermine, effective collaborative separation.

This concluding chapter summarizes the critical insights that changemakers ought to consider in their attempt to lead and manage cocreation processes and enhance their impact. The chapter also addresses three crucial challenges to the advent of a sustainable future: the need to rethink the assumptions of mainstream economics, the need to secure political stability in times of rapid societal change; and the demand for the deepening democracy. Finally, the chapter argues that local efforts to build a sustainable future will only succeed if key economic, political, and democratic challenges are effectively dealt with at the global and national levels.

This chapter looks at how Goal 17 on partnerships can be a lever of change. It discusses the partnership approach to achieving the SDGs and unravels the key functions of networks and partnerships, such as knowledge sharing, coordination, and collaborative governance. It carefully explains why we need to shift the focus of the global debate from collaborative governance to the cocreation of public value outcomes. It then provides a schematic account of the different steps in the process of cocreating outcomes, which include initiation, design, implementation, and evaluation. Finally, the chapter identifies the key merits of cocreation and looks its dark side straight in the eye.

This chapter examines the translation of generic global goals into local action. It first discusses the translation of global goals into national agendas and the challenges of localizing the goals. Localizing the goals is essential for ensuring that the SDGs reflect local needs, norms, and values, thus ensuring that local actors find them relevant and meaningful. The chapter argues that cocreation is a key vehicle for the localization of the SDGs and identifies the key benefits that arise from using cocreation as a localization strategy. Cocreation can foster the will and capacity for local governments and communities to advance the cause of sustainability. Cocreation can help communities integrate the sustainable development goals, identify hidden resources, build support networks, create social accountability, etc.