Best practices in sustainability engineering have gained traction in recent years, reflecting the global urgency to integrate sustainability principles into product development. However, the impact of sustainability standardization on engineering is still weak. This study investigates whether a transdisciplinary approach is possible, i.e., if sustainability initiatives could build upon the groundwork laid by efforts to ensure another system-wide property – safety. Insights were elicited on entities and structures in product and process innovation communities through semi-structured interviews. Using an abductive approach these entities and structures are revealed not only as drivers of innovation, but also as what defines (safety and sustainability) practice that can later make its way into standards. This study thus augments established theory considering innovation systems, shifting the perspective to what limits the evolution of products and processes to contribute a framework for a systemic understanding of standardization efforts. By utilizing this framework, the comparatively weak infrastructure of sustainability throughout engineering activities, and the importance of intermediary organisations to sustainability standardization, are identified. Based on these observations the study argues for the need to, as safety engineering does, reinforce sustainability practice by requiring engineers to construct a logical case for sustainability throughout product development and manufacturing activities.