Diverse discourses converge into the importance of broadening the focus of sustainability innovations from merely cleaner technologies to more radical, paradigmatic innovations. Here, we focus on grassroots innovation (GI) as a radical innovation paradigm whose agents, goals and practices are fundamentally different from conventional innovation. Researchers typically attribute GIs the potential to influence the transition toward more sustainable production and consumption. Through a systematic literature review, we find that a research gap in the systematic analysis of GIs’ sustainability persists. We thus propose a meta-theoretical framework to systematise the sustainability assessment of GIs across three system levels: product, organisational model and socio-technical system. Our framework delineates how the theory and tools from sustainability assessment and sustainable business models may enrich sustainability transitions studies in the analysis of grassroots, and more broadly, radical innovation, providing a systems thinking view and increasing the credibility and reflexivity of sustainability arguments in transition studies.

中文翻译：

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草根创新：回顾和元理论可持续性评估框架

各种讨论都集中在将可持续发展创新的重点从单纯的清洁技术扩大到更激进、范式创新的重要性上。在这里，我们将草根创新（GI）作为一种激进的创新范式，其主体、目标和实践与传统创新有着根本的不同。研究人员通常认为地理标志具有影响向更可持续的生产和消费转型的潜力。通过系统的文献回顾，我们发现地理标志可持续性系统分析方面仍然存在研究空白。因此，我们提出了一个元理论框架，将地理标志的可持续性评估系统化，涵盖三个系统层面：产品、组织模式和社会技术系统。我们的框架描绘了可持续性评估和可持续商业模式的理论和工具如何丰富基层分析中的可持续性转型研究，更广泛地说，激进的创新，提供系统思维观点并提高转型研究中可持续性论点的可信度和反身性。