Evaluation systems have become increasingly central to how organizations guide and legitimize their innovation, governance, and sustainability practices. However, a fundamental question remains insufficiently addressed: to what extent are these systems capable not only of measuring performance, but of enabling the organizational transformation they are designed to support? This study examines this question within the Brazilian credit cooperative system, focusing on the Gestão Estratégica de Propósito (GEP — Strategic Purpose Management): a structured program developed by Fenasbac to diagnose and develop the maturity of purpose-driven innovation management in credit cooperatives, operating through integrated stages that include self-assessment, qualifi ed feedback, strategic learning journeys, and structured deepening, within which the Recognition of Innovation with Purpose (RECIP) constitutes the fi nal recognition stage.Grounded in a service ecosystems perspective and drawing on embedded case study design informed by Research through Design (RtD) and Design Science Research (DSR), this study analyzes a validated dataset of 56 cooperative feedback reports from the 2025 GEP evaluation cycle, complemented by institutional panoramas, documentary analysis, and longitudinal ordinal comparison across prior cycles (2022–2025). The analysis is structured across fi ve evaluative dimensions: participatory governance, inter-cooperative collaboration, capacity development, green fi nance, and ESG.Three recurring systemic patterns are identifi ed. First, a persistent gap exists between normative coherence and operational consolidation: cooperative principles and sustainability agendas are widely embedded in governance discourse, but their translation into structured organizational capabilities remains uneven. Second, capability development is asymmetrically distributed across ecosystem levels, with stronger consolidation at the micro-organizational level and increasing fragility in inter-cooperative collaboration and green fi nance, a pattern further evidenced by a 2.40-point mean differential in Green Finance 3maturity between cooperative systems operating under identical evaluative conditions. Third, the ecosystem exhibits high levels of diagnostic refl exivity without equivalent mechanisms for adaptive reinforcement, resulting in episodic rather than cumulative learning. These patterns are synthesized as the sustainability translation gap, a structural condition in which ESG governance commitments are not systematically translated into fi nancial operationalization.Building on these fi ndings, the study proposes a reconceptualization of the GEP as an Adaptive Service Infrastructure. This redesign integrates three multilevel reinforcement loops — internal adaptive reinforcement (micro), inter-cooperative diffusion (meso), and sustainability–fi nance integration (macro) — with a progressive capability scaffolding architecture and a redesigned service blueprint. The proposed architecture enables evaluation to move beyond diagnostic recognition toward cumulative institutional capacity building.This study advances service ecosystem theory by positioning evaluation systems as active institutional mechanisms within ecosystem dynamics, contributes to organizational capability theory by distinguishing between the presence and consolidation of practices, and extends evaluation theory by establishing the limits of diagnostic-only systems and conceptualizing adaptive evaluation as an infrastructure for reinforcement, coordination, and learning. The fi ndings carry practical implications for the governance of cooperative fi nancial ecosystems and for policy frameworks aimed at supporting sustainable and purpose-driven development.