The proposed panel invites conference participants to interrogate the concept of Sustainability Innovation (SI), to learn and to discuss its meaning within the realities of increasing climate impacts in Colombia and Southern Africa.
Sustainability Innovation can be understood as novelties that address the all three dimensions in people, planet, and profit. The main feature of a SI is its normative directionality, shaped by the purpose for sustainability. An essential difference to economic-technological innovations is the focus on socio-ecological challenges and problems. As a different type of innovation SIs should contribute to a sustainable social transformation, but how does this work in different parts of the world.
Sustainability innovations are a social construct evolving from the interplay of diverse actors in complex and often changing actor constellations, including political actors, civil society, intermediaries, and scientific and market actors with their respective resources, competencies and power potentials. They are oriented toward balancing and considering the mutual ecological, economic, and social needs, interests, and objectives accompanied by conflicting goals and complex negotiation processes.
The panel will firstly, introduce and contextualise SI from diverse perspectives, secondly discuss examples of SI and identify common challenges and benefits of SI in the regions of study
Intervenciones
Breaking path-dependency and catch-up strategies. Opportunities for transformative innovation in the Cordoba Region, Colombia – Diana Velasco, Alejandra Boni, Jaider Vega y Oswaldo Sanabria
The dominant narrative in innovation policy for “periphery”, “less developed”, “developing” countries has been focused on their need to “catch up” with the most developed and industrialised ones, through a whole set of strategies that vary from strengthening the research and development investment, to better coordinate actors to produce economic growth centred innovation (Velasco, 2015). The existing and now permanent environmental and social planetary crises are feedback from a concatenation of recurring shocks that have the potential to imprint or create a permanent change produced by the traumatic events, with new pathways in the socio ecological and technical systems (Johnstone and Schot forthcoming). Given the current affairs, the innovation policy frames focused mainly on the economic dimension have been contested and perceived as not fit for purpose. In this context, the transformative innovation policy frame advocates for an innovation focused on systems change through just transitions (Schot & Steinmueller, 2018). Such a frame is particularly relevant for the Global South (GS), which has contributed the least to the current situation but is disproportionally affected by its effects. We argue that the GS has the advantage to break the path-dependency and lock-in of unsustainable and unfair pathways given the less embedded infrastructure, organisations, and institutions invested. Then, instead of catching up, the GS countries have the opportunity to lead the way and expand their experimentation capacity, which has been prominent in alternative practices given the lack of many structural conditions that push communities to innovate.
We showcase our argument by presenting the case of the Cordoba region, in Colombia. Cordoba is a predominantly agricultural and animal breeding territory which has been impacted by the strong armed conflict. However, a process to renew the science, technology and innovation regional plan has opened the possibility to involve a broad constellation of actors including small farmers, small companies, producers’ associations, chambers of commerce, universities and public research centres, local and regional governments, regulation organisations, to build a participatory and inclusive plan based on transformative innovation policies (Velasco et al. forthcoming). This contribution exposes the conflicting goals and complex negotiation processes towards desirable futures based on just transitions. We present the results of participatory methods to characterise the Cordoba agrifood regime, the landscape pressures, and the first identification of niches to be nurtured and empowered through collective action, where policy plays an important but insufficient role. We argue that Cordoba has the potential to become a seedbed of prototypes and demonstrators of agroecological and regenerative livestock
Innovating for sustainability in rural Uganda – Developing and implementing local approaches to global challenges – Annika Surmeier
Sustainability innovations are understood as innovations that reconcile economic, environmental, and social goals (Strambach & Surmeier, 2016). These types of innovations aim to address societal needs and disrupt established social practices and relationships to pursue opportunities to promote transformative sustainable change (Littlewood et al., 2022; Strambach, 2017). Therefore, sustainability innovations are inherently connected with changing social practices and institutional change (Cajaiba-Santana, 2014; Nilsson, 2019).
Innovating for sustainability is not a straightforward process and more research is needed that investigates the complex negotiation and development processes that underlie sustainability innovations (Cillo et al., 2019). Currently, most empirical research on sustainability innovations is limited to the Global North, and the roles of African actors as agents of change have been largely overlooked (Littlewood et al., 2022; Loorbach et al., 2017). Therefore, there is a strong need for comparative research within and across African countries to investigate how different institutional environments influence the development, implementation and diffusion of sustainability innovations, and how they can contribute to transformative sustainable change.
This contribution addresses this research gap by focusing on Uganda and is guided by the question: How do local actors address interrelated social, economic and environmental needs in challenging contexts in innovative ways? Based on a qualitative research design, it analyses how local actors identify and leverage opportunities to promote sustainability innovations within rural farming communities that are strongly impacted by the effects of climate change. The empirical insights reveal three phases in the development process of sustainability innovations in rural Uganda that are characterized by different actor constellations and guided by different institutional logics. The findings also underline the need to build legitimacy and trust, and a deep understanding of local context conditions as a pre-requisite for the development and implementation of sustainability innovations. These processes evolve over relatively long periods of time. Considering the urgency of climate change challenges, the contribution argues that the development and implementation of sustainability innovations needs to be led by locally embedded actors. Policy makers and international development organizations should adequately resource and support local actors.
Sustainability Innovation from a Southern African Perspective and its Role in Climate Policy Response in the Global South
Sustainability Innovation is a concept that refers to a type of innovation that is a combination of eco-innovation and social innovation, in which the innovation is not only profitable but also provides ecological and/or social benefits (2023).
Sustainability innovation has, over the past decades, evolved as a concept to analyse and shape social responses to climate change. (How) has it helped to address climate change? Where do we see social and ecological benefits from sustainability in Africa and the Global South.
The presentation comprises three components. First, we will look at our contemporary conjuncture with a focus on Planetary Boundaries and Sustainable Development Goals in Africa. The second section presents some of the continental Science, Technology, And Innovation data. The Third section analyses the empirical information and reflects on the concept of Sustainability Innovation as a framework to understand Africa’ current position in the climate change discourse. The conclusions suggest further research challenges emerging from the Presentation.
This presentation will draw upon the empirical data collated by the African Science, Technology, and Innovation Indicators Programme of the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NePAD), as well as the experiences gained from teaching a module on Planetary Boundaries, Sustainable Development Goals, and Science, Technology, and Innovation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’ Southern African Development Community’s Science, Technology, And Innovation Training Programme cohort of 2021/22.