Innovation is the process of identifying the unmet needs of the customers and providing them solutions in the form of products, services, processes and business models.

One of the most important innovations that made big news globally in the recent times is the $2000 car, Tata Nano . Tata Nano enables middle class families ,who previously used the unsafe motor bikes and were non-consumers of cars, to purchase a car at the same price and get increased safety/comfort. This was achieved through trade offs in performance but efficient distribution systems and increased mileage. This car will soon alter the landscape of India with every middle class family has the potential to own a car and this will lead to a population of around 100 million cars in the near future. It is not wrong to imagine a milk vendor coming in a Nano or Autos replaced by Yellow/Black Nanos and chicken farmers carrying poultry in their Nano.

Nano , without doubt, will grow the car market in India and it is going to be an astounding business victory but what about the damage it causes to global warming. These increased number of cars are going to emit more CO2 into the air and thousands of trees are going to be felled very soon to create new roads, new petrol stations, new garages and new mechanic shops. Already, there is a global crisis of oil and the natural resources are fast depleting. With this sudden economic growth in the emerging markets, there is a fast growing middle class which wants to experience and consume things that were previously considered luxury for them. This rapid development will have huge impact on the natural resources and we are going to eliminate our jungles with concrete jungles.

Should businesses take responsibility for these environmental hazzards?. Do their responsibility and vision end with giving convenient products for their customers? Should they rather go one step further and see whether their innovation is successful not only from a business standpoint but also from a social standpoint; whether the comfort 100 million families got was greater than the discomfort the whole world is getting out of it;

I would like to use one example used by Amartya Sen in his book "The Argumentative Indian". Robert Oppenheimer was the leader of the american team that developed the ultimate weapon of mass destruction during the second world war. He could find justification in his technical innovation "The Atom Bomb" to develop a bomb that made it convenient for America to create mass destruction at one go. This innovation reduced the complexities associated with the earlier weapons. Scrutinizing - indeed criticizing - his own actions, Oppenheimer said later on: "When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and you argue about what to do about it only after you have had your technical success".

The biggest question is whether innovation ends at the customer satisfaction level or does it go one step higher and see how it impacts the biological eco-system as a whole?