Supporting sustainable innovation through TRIZ system thinking

Reaching a sustainable approach in industrial development is a complex challenge that involves several knowledge spheres. The lack of a common vision about sustainability complicates this research issue. The paper proposes a tool that faces with this obstacle during the first phases of design by means of a new instrument: the SUSTAINability map. It is based on two key items of TRIZ: the existence of Laws describing the Evolution of Engineering Systems and the System Operator. In order to clarify the logic of the proposed approach, that has been structured such that no TRIZ background is needed, the paper includes the presentation of a case study, in the field of clothes cleaning.