Abstract:
Innovative processes aimed at sustainable development or eco-innovations have
received increasing attention during the past years despite the lack of theoretical
and methodological approaches to analyzing their impact. This paper focuses on
how sustainability indicators can be used to measure the effects of “non-technical” ecoinnovations
in the Sri Lankan tea plantation sector. After carrying out an experimental
case study on a commercial tea plantation, we employed a combination of physical
and monetary sustainability indicators to evaluate the initial results of the ecoinnovation.
It shows that innovations aimed at improving economic benefits often
result in unintentional environmental and social benefits that support a lean-green
relationship. It reveals the difficulty in having a standardized set of indicators to
measure the impact of eco-innovations owing to the multidimensionality of
sustainability. Hence, the case study suggests adopting broad sustainability indicators
that represent the wholeness of the system while capturing the long-term impact.
Keywords: Agriculture, Eco-innovation, Sri Lanka, Sustainability, Sustainability
accounting, Sustainability indicators, Tea industry, Triple bottom line
