A Diffusion-Discontinuance Sustainability Framework Integrating Economic Orientations and Theoretical Positions

Abstract

This article introduces the Diffusion-Discontinuance Sustainability Framework, a model that integrates innovation dynamics with economic orientations and theoretical positions to guide sustainable innovation strategies. While diffusion has been extensively studied in marketing, discontinuance, defined here as the deliberate phase-out of harmful products, services, and infrastructures whose life-cycle impacts materially contribute to ecological boundary transgression or undermine social well-being and equity, remains conceptually and managerially underdeveloped. The Diffusion-Discontinuance Sustainability Framework addresses this gap by linking these dynamics across sustainable growth, degrowth, ecological economics, and environmental economics. The framework organizes sustainability approaches along two axes: economic orientation (growth vs. degrowth) and theoretical focus (ecological vs. environmental economics), yielding four quadrants. Each reflects a distinct logic: efficiency-oriented innovation and market-mediated phase-outs in Sustainable Growth + Environmental Economics; boundary-compatible technological transitions in Sustainable Growth + Ecological Economics; reduction-oriented transitions under market-based instruments in Degrowth + Environmental Economics; and sufficiency-oriented innovation with planned discontinuance in Degrowth + Ecological Economics. By connecting innovation dynamics to economic reasoning, the Diffusion-Discontinuance Sustainability Framework offers a strategic lens for alignment with planetary boundaries and social equity. It provides a conceptual structure for research on sustainable innovation strategies, capabilities for managing discontinuance, and the implications of diffusion and discontinuance for sustainable marketing theory.