Moving innovation forward through value clarity
- Marta Kaprāle
- Feb 25, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Public organisations and private companies invest significant time and resources in innovation related to sustainability, transition, and long-term resilience. Strategies are defined. Programmes and solutions are launched. Yet progress often slows well before meaningful results are achieved.
This gap is visible in the data. Global assessments consistently show a difference between stated commitments and actual outcomes. Analysis referenced by the World Economic Forum* indicates that only 18% of the Sustainable Development Goals are currently on track, with nearly half progressing too slowly and close to one fifth regressing. Achieving these goals depends heavily on how innovation is taken up and acted on by organisations across sectors.
The issue is not a lack of ambition. It is how innovation is understood, prioritised, and translated into decisions inside organisations and across their stakeholders.
A common assumption underpins much innovation work. Once a strategy, policy, or solution is launched, others will engage because the underlying problem is widely recognised. Climate risk. Social responsibility. Long-term resilience. The value appears self-evident. In practice, it is not.
Across public policy, research-driven work, and corporate sustainability, innovation often slows because its value is interpreted differently across roles and organisations. Leadership, operational teams, external partners, and regulators assess the same work through different incentives, constraints, and responsibilities. When these interpretations are not aligned, decisions are postponed.
The core issue is that value remains insufficiently clear in decision-relevant terms. Value clarity means being able to answer, consistently and in practical language:
- what this innovation makes possible that is not possible today;
- what decisions people will actually have to take differently because it exists;
- what will change in how work is organised, prioritised, or coordinated if it moves forward;
- what remains unresolved if it does not.
When these questions remain open, people may agree the work matters, but it does not lead to action.
In the public sector, this gap is visible in how innovation agendas are rolled out. Ambitious targets are set for climate transition, digitalisation, and competitiveness. Their success depends on how businesses, municipalities, researchers, and civil society translate these priorities into practice. Yet engagement is often treated as a secondary step. Policies are finalised first, and participation is expected to follow.
The result is rarely open resistance. More often, it is hesitation. Organisations are unsure where they fit, what is expected of them, or how much responsibility they carry. Innovation work feels distant because its implications remain unclear.
A similar pattern appears in the private sector. Regulatory frameworks and sustainability reporting requirements have increased transparency. Data is collected. Indicators are tracked. Reports are published. Yet innovation linked to sustainability often remains something that is documented rather than actively worked through across the organisation and its value chain.
If innovation is meant to move forward, value alignment has to be built deliberately.
This starts with identifying how value is currently perceived. Teams, partners, and stakeholders need to be asked how they understand the work, what value they see in it, and what they believe is meant to change as a result.
It then requires identifying the gaps. Where does understanding diverge? What information, educational work, data, or insight is missing for decisions to move forward with confidence?
Finally, it depends on choosing an engagement approach that fits the situation. Different gaps call for different formats — a focused working discussion, a shared onboarding process, or targeted explanatory material. The objective is not visibility, but shared, decision-ready understanding.
This is how value becomes actionable and how innovation stops stalling.
Data reference
*World Economic Forum, SDG Progress Report 2025.
