Semantic Innovation: a driver for the innovation of construction materials

The demand of sustainability can affect various issues of the production of materials and components for construction. This leads to process innovation, product innovation and semantic innovation. The innovation of meaning, what I call semantic innovation, is the kind of innovation that leads to the change of understanding or acceptance of a process or a product in relation to a meaning changed, added, or simply made explicit (i.e. describes the product characteristics that construction had already previously but which had never been suitably described and used for the affirmation of the product on the market). The paper proposes an interpretation of an innovation process based on dialogue with stakeholders, a process by which the building project and, more specifically, the project of construction products can satisfy the need for environmental compatibility and can position itself on the market in innovative ways. The paper shows examples and discusses the dynamics of innovation in the construction industry in relation to the increasingly clear demand for sustainability.