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INNOVATION AS A TOOL FOR SUSTAINABILITY Name of Student Course Name of Professor University Date Innovation as a Tool for Sustainability Hello everyone, and welcome to this presentation. My topic is innovation as a tool for achieving sustainability. The case study focuses on Tesla, an iconic electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer whose mission is to speed the transition to sustainable energy. The primary question that the presentation answers is whether and to what extent innovations can be used to drive sustainability. Focusing on Tesla’s EVs, the presentation will also explore issues that undermine the company’s mission and explain why Tesla’s innovations are not yet fully sustainable. Many people tend to associate Tesla with Elon Musk, who has become the face and voice of the company. However, Tesla was founded by two engineers, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, in 2003. Musk became a member of Tesla in 2004 after he invested $30 million, at which point he became the chairperson of Tesla’s board of directors. At its inception, the company’s core business was to design and manufacture EVs to help the world transition into sustainable transportation. Besides EVs, Tesla also designs and manufactures clean energy generation and storage systems. Tesla reflects Elon Musk’s ambitions of making the planet cleaner by reducing carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, Tesla is often used as an ideal case for driving the sustainability agenda. Before examining the intersection between the two concepts, innovation and sustainability, it is essential to understand what each means. Innovation in business refers to creating new or improving existing products to the extent that the new offerings challenge the conventional ones. In other words, innovation results in the introduction of novel goods or services or an improvement in the goods or services. In many cases, innovation is disruptive because it changes entire industries. Disruptive innovations start as novel and modest offerings that gradually grow to challenge industry leaders. For example, Tesla’s EVs started as novel ideas and products, but EVs are not amassing massive market share in the automotive industry. Indeed, even traditional automotive manufacturers are adding EVs to their portfolio to challenge Tesla’s threat. This scenario introduces another theory of innovation–staged competition theory. Innovation could result from competition, which highlights the role of competition in driving ...