Making sense of how the natural environment shapes innovation, industry dynamics, and sustainability challenges

As the world moves towards the Anthropocene, it becomes increasingly important to understand how the natural environment shapes innovation, industry dynamics, and sustainability challenges. We suggest that studying innovation in natural resource based industries yields important insights. Despite the importance of innovation in and transformation of natural resource based industries for development and sustainability, the issue has received limited scholarly attention. To advance our thinking about innovation in these industries, we explore and elaborate on the notion of ‘natural resource knowledge idiosyncrasy’ which describes how heterogeneity of natural environments often generates a need for unique innovations that require development and application of in situ knowledge. We draw on theories of knowledge stickiness and user-driven innovation to conceptualize natural resource knowledge idiosyncrasy. We qualify and elaborate that conceptualization through a review of case studies. On that basis we discuss implications for innovation policy, sustainability challenges, and further research.