The origins and purpose of eco-innovation

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted following peer review for publication in Global Environment. A Journal of History and Natural and Social Sciences The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at http://www.whp-journals.co.uk/GE/Pansera.pdfNowadays, eco-friendly technologies are considered a strategic objective in industrialised countries. Rising demand for more sustainable products and services from civil society has become a major challenge for policy makers. The present article aims to provide a historical perspective on the concept of eco-innovation, its different meanings and its position in the modern debate around sustainability. The first part of the article explores the origins of the notion of eco-innovation, drawing on the Sustainable Development debate. The second part attempts to shed light on the purpose of eco-innovation and its implications for a desirable sustainable transition in modern industrial societies. This part illustrates the essential differences between mainstream economics and the School of Ecological Economics. Finally, the third part attempts to describe the social and institutional changes necessary to foster eco-innovation

Frugality, grassroots and inclusiveness: new challenges for mainstream innovation theories

Author's post-print version originally presented at GLOBELICS International Conference on “Innovation and Development: Opportunities and Challenges in Globalisation” Hangzhou, China November 9-11 2012.Intriguing and provocative concepts such as frugal innovation, BOP innovation, empathetic innovation and inclusive innovation are attracting the attention of many scholars in emerging countries as well as raising concern in the Western. Those notions are often indicated as ‘below-the-radar innovations’. There are several reasons to believe that technical and social changes originating in the developing world will become a major driver of innovation in the near future. For those reasons it is crucial to understand how innovation is planned, design and deployed outside the comfortable territory of Western paradigm. The objective of the present article is to provide an overview of the alternative innovation paradigms that are emerging in the developing world. On the other hand, the article aims at analysing the determinants and drivers that are at the base of below-the-radar innovation

Renewable energy for rural areas of Bolivia

This is the Accepted Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 16 (2012) pp. 6694-6704. The final version is available online at http://www.sciencedirect.com/This paper analyses the current status of rural renewable energy in Bolivia and provides and employs an analysis framework to study the network of stakeholders that determines the adoption, absorption and diffusion of renewable energy technology. The study, moreover, illustrates the impact and implications of traditional indigenous knowledge on the local entrepreneurial ecosystem

Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era

The feasibility and desirability of endless economic growth is being increasingly questioned by scholars and activists. Whilst envisioning alternative economic models is key to assure the sustainability and wellbeing of present and future generations, few studies have analysed what might be the role of ‘innovation’ in a post-growth era. Innovating has become an imperative for the survival and expansion of any form of organisation. But this ‘innovate or die mania’ underpins assumptions – such as technological determinism and productivism – that neglect the socially constructed character of technological development, its politics and its capacity to enable (or disable) just and equitable societies. In this paper we posit that untangling innovation from growth is key to imagine a post-growth era. We show how alternative bottom up initiatives, promoted by a variety of different organizational forms, have challenged mainstream ideas about innovation and growth. These experiments provide a glimpse into what ‘innovation without growth’ could mean in terms of technology and social organization. We conclude by proposing new paths in research aimed at exploring under which conditions post-growth-oriented organizations can flourish and diffuse.Fil: Pansera, Mario. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; EspañaFil: Fressoli, Juan Mariano. Centro de Investigaciones para la Transformación; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Frugal or Fair? The Unfulfilled Promises of Frugal Innovation

Frugal innovation has become a popular buzzword among management and business scholars. However, despite its popularity, I argue that the frugal innovation literature, in its present form, is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the frugal innovation literature assumes that scarcity is a normal condition of the “Global South”. In this article, I show that this assumption neglects the fact that scarcity can be socially constructed to deny certain social sectors the access to resources essential for their flourishing. Second, despite all the good intentions underpinning the idea of “alleviating poverty”, frugal innovation studies rarely challenge, or even discuss, the causes of destitution and social exclusion. Innovation, as well as technology, is overwhelmingly framed in an agnostic and neutral way that sidelines the socio-economic complexity of the exclusion mechanisms that cause poverty and underdevelopment. By ignoring this, the frugal innovation literature risks limiting the understanding of the problems it seeks to solve and, most importantly, it risks limiting its impact. Most frugal innovation literature, in other words, seems to elude the fact that, rather than being a mere lack of resources or technology, poverty is a matter of social justice. In order to be empowering, technology has to be value-based, normative framed, socially controlled, and democratically debated. In this article, I propose that we should use these principles to develop a new wave of frugal innovation literature and practice

Discourses of Innovation and Development: Insights from Ethnographic Case Studies in Bangladesh and India

In the 1990s, the topics of development and poverty, once dominated by development economists, appeared on the radar of management, organizational studies and innovation scholars. A huge variety of terms, some historical like ‘appropriate technology’ and some others totally new like ‘frugal innovation’, ‘Jugaad innovation’ and ‘inclusive innovation’ began to populate the business and management literature. Concurrently, the field of development studies became progressively hybridised with elements from business and innovation studies. This thesis contributes to the analysis of this ‘cross-pollination’ between the discourses of development and the discourses of Innovation. The research discusses how the meaning of innovation, an interpretively flexible and contested ‘buzzword’ with the capacity to shelter multiple political agendas, is constructed within the discourses and practices of development to support and further the values and interests of those actors who employ it. By telling the stories of four different communities of practitioners in Bangladesh and India, this thesis validates, on one hand, some of the conclusions of the extant literature concerning innovation in resource-constrained environments. On the other hand, it provides original insights about the construction of the discourse of innovation and technical change in situated practices. The cases confirm that innovation can and does spring from resource-constrained conditions, where it is often driven and shaped not only by malfunctioning formal and informal institutions, market mechanisms and a weak private sector, but also by traditional knowledge, empathy and cultural motives. At the same time, the findings reveal that technological innovation is neither necessary nor sufficient to reverse the causes of poverty and exclusion, historically major targets for development. In certain circumstances, innovation can even reinforce unequal power relationships by favouring those who already enjoy privileged positions in the community. In three of the four cases analysed, the discourse of innovation attempt to transform the social practices of ‘the beneficiaries’, promoting all the features typical of neoliberal agenda such as competitiveness, ownership, productivity, efficiency and market-oriented production, while at the same time dismissing pre-existing or alternative subsistence patterns of life and nonmarketable solutions. These dynamics present within an emergent, hegemonic discourse of ‘Inclusive business’, which is inspired by the desire to include people within the framework of the market economy, fighting the informal economy and, ultimately, erasing subsistence. What emerges from the research is that discourses of social justice and political transformation have been marginalised, if not completely neglected, in discourses of innovation and development. The thesis, however, describes that the meaning of innovation in the context of development remains contested. There exist countervailing voices that, despite being a minority, have and continue to open up the debate about the value of innovation and technological change as an instrument for social transformation

Role of ICT Innovation in Perpetuating the Myth of Techno-Solutionism

Innovation in Information and Communication Technology has become one of the key economic drivers of our technology dependent world. In popular notion, the tech industry or how ICT is often known has become synonymous to all technologies that drive modernity. Digital technologies have become so pervasive that it is hard to imagine new technology developments that are not totally or partially influenced by ICT innovations. Furthermore, the pace of innovation in ICT sector over the last few decades has been unprecedented in human history. In this paper we argue that, not only ICT had a tremendous impact on the way we communicate and produce but this innovation paradigm has crucially shaped collective expectations and imagination about what technology more broadly can actually deliver. These expectations have often crystalised into a widespread acceptance, among general public and policy makers, of technosolutionism. This is a belief that technology not restricted to ICT alone can solve all problems humanity is facing from poverty and inequality to ecosystem loss and climate change. In this paper we show the many impacts of relentless ICT innovation. The spectacular advances in this sector, coupled with corporate power that benefits from them have facilitated the uptake by governments and industries of an uncritical narrative of techno-optimist that neglects the complexity of the wicked problems that affect the present and future of humanity

The infrastructural conditions of (de-)growth: The case of the internet

Infrastructure studies represent a domain that remains significantly uncharted among degrowth scholars. This is paradoxical considering that infrastructures constitute a fundamental prerequisite for the equitable distribution of many aspects of human well-being that degrowth proponents emphasize. Nonetheless, the substantial resource and energy consumption associated with infrastructures cannot be overlooked. The internet offers an instructive case study in this sense, at its best it forges human connections and is productive of considerable societal value. The resource implications of the often-overlooked internet physical layer of data-centres and submarine cables needs to be acknowledged. Furthermore, the ways in which assumptions of perpetual growth are built into this global infrastructure via the logic layer of internet protocols and other governing mechanisms such as finance and network design need to be examined if we are to determine the extent to which such infrastructures are inherently growth dependent. In making these two arguments, we draw upon the work of both Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Large Technological System (LTS) studies on the inherent problems of large infrastructures which have thus far seen little engagement with questions of degrowth. We review the case of the internet and suggest a number of scenarios that illustrate potential roles for such infrastructures in any planned reduction of economic activity.Universidade de Vigo/CISU

From creative destruction to convivial innovation. A post-growth perspective

In this paper, we argue that the notion of Creative Destruction underpinning classical innovation management theory as well as having crystallised into technological determinism and productivism has come to a dead-end. Framing innovation's ultimate goal as the endless pursuit of economic growth is unrealistic if we wish to address pressing environmental challenges. We show that Creative Destruction historically emerged as an ideology from a specific set of values and worldviews at the cradle of Western capitalism and its need for valorisations. Capital valorisation imposes its logic on innovation, definition of needs, consumption, and organisation of work. The mantra of ‘innovate or die’ and its underpinning values represent a hegemonic view on technology aligned with the capitalist mode of production. We argue that a counter-hegemonic view emphasising conviviality and use-value is possible instead and needed to address the environmental and social challenges of our time. We posit that the (re-)emerging mode of production, commons-based peer production (CBPP) has such potential. Indicative cases show that innovation underlined by counter-hegemonic values already exists, albeit in the cracks of the dominant system and in constant danger of co-optation. Governmental institutions need to support these alternative practices of innovation.Axencia Galega de InnovaciónUniversidade de Vigo/CISU

Information and Communication Technology Spanish Gazelles: A Competitiveness Analysis

Due to the difficult economic situation, which has led to dramatic job losses in Spain, the companies with high growth potential are seen as a promising alternative to resume economic growth. A sample of companies in the information and communications technology sector sets up the basis of this comparative analysis of the characteristics of gazelles versus the standard firms. Also this study shows, by means of a cluster analysis, the determinants of gazelles along the different stages of their development. This will lead to a better understanding of gazelle businesses, from which to develop incentives to increase the number of them