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Sustainable Sustainable Innovation:Innovation:
Challenges for Innovation Studies
Govindan Parayil
Professor
Center for Technology, Innovation and Culture
University of Oslo, [email protected]
Global Climate ChangeGlobal Climate Change
o The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore & IPCCo Nobel citation: “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge
about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”o IPCC has done exemplary work on the science of climate change
Global Global Climate ChangeClimate Change
Al Gore has made great effort to disseminate “greater knowledge” about global warming
But we are yet to see the laying of the “foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such changes”
United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, December 3-14, 2007
One of the key recommendations is about developing and sharing technologies
Growth and PovertyGrowth and Poverty
Great concentrations of wealth and growing prosperity in the world
Still 986 million people were eking out a living on less than a dollar a day in 2004 (The World Bank)
2.6 billion people subsist on two dollars a day in 2004 (The World Bank)
Development deficit still haunts the star performers.
Growth and inequality
Development indicatorsDevelopment indicators (Source: World Development (Source: World Development Indicators 2006)Indicators 2006)
Country Population in 2004 (million)
GDP 2004 (billion $)
Electricity usage per capita 2003 (kwh)
Tel landlines per 1000 people (2004)
Cellular subscribers per 1000 (2004)
Internet users per 1000 (2004)
India 1080 691 435 41 44 32
China 1296 1932 1379 241 258 73
Brazil 184 604 1883 230 357 120
South Africa 45.5 213 4399 103 413 78
Indonesia 218 258 440 46 138 67
South Korea 48 680 7018 103 413 657
Japan 128 4623 7818 460 716 587
Sweden 9 346 15403 767 1034 756
Singapore 4.2 107 7977 440 910 571
Denmark 5.4 241 6602 643 956 696
USA 294 11712 13078 606 617 630
Growth & PovertyGrowth & Poverty
It is not all bad news!260 million people escaped
extreme poverty during 1990-2004, mostly in emerging Asia and hundreds of millions moved up to middle class status
Growth and PovertyGrowth and PovertyChina’s growth story during the past three
decades and India’s growth during the past decade.
What about the rising global consumption of food, oil, minerals, etc.?
All people in the world have an inalienable moral right to demand a decent standard of living taken for granted in Europe, North America, Japan and so on.
Can we grow without leaving unsustainable carbon and ecological footprint?
Can we do it through sustainable innovations?
World Energy 1850-2000
050
100150200250300350400450500
1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000
Year
EJ/
yea
r
Gas
Oil
Coal
Nuclear
Hydro +
Biomass
World supply of primary energy
Hydro+ means hydropower plus other renewables besides biomass
Energy supply grew 20-fold between 1850 and 2000. Fossil fuels supplied 80% of the world’s energy in 2000. Source: Holdren (2007)
Global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2000
Stern Review (Oct 2006)
The fossil fuels responsible for the energy emissions were still supplying 80% of civilization’s energy in 2005
Business-as-usual (BAU) Business-as-usual (BAU) forecastsforecasts
2004 2030
Primary energy, exajoules
World 500 750
United States 107 150
China 73 140
Electricity, trillion kWh
World 16.5 30
United States 4.0 6.0
China 1.9 4.8 Source: Holdren (2007)
Sustainable Innovation, a question Sustainable Innovation, a question concerning technology? concerning technology?
Environmentally and socially creative ways of expanding productivity and economic opportunities
Need bold initiatives without leaving massive ecological footprint on the planet
Functionality, efficiency, aesthetics, cost and so on are important to engineering design
Sustainability dimension (indicators)A crucial shift in innovation dynamicsA question concerning technology?
Revisiting the technology Revisiting the technology debatedebate
Focus on technology as the problem for unsustainability is an old one
The Limits to Growth (Meadows, et al.)Appropriate or alternative technology
movementSmall is Beautiful (E.F. Schumacher)Our Common Future (Brundtland
Commission)
New Innovation DynamicsNew Innovation DynamicsBridge the gap between science and
research with innovationUpstream research discoveries need to
be sustainably bridged to downstream applications
Move beyond price signals for market clearance
Private sector will not allocate resources under extreme uncertainty
A quadruple helix of key stakeholdersOpen innovation and user-producer
interactions
New Innovation DynamicsNew Innovation Dynamics
Innovation and the learning economyA new system of innovationSTI and DUI mode (Lundvall)Learning economy and sustainability
by combining Amartya Sen’s concepts of agency, capability and human development
Development must be seen as an expansion of substantive freedoms that humans value and enjoy
Development is not just growth
Innovation and sustainabilityInnovation and sustainability
Substantive freedoms are essentially the capabilities humans have to live the kind of lives they have reason to value
Freedom from starvation, poverty, and diseases; the freedom of being literate, able to participate in political processes, in civil society, to shape one’s own living conditions; ability to nurture entrepreneurial skills, etc.
Shift in focus from “the patient” to “the agent”
Innovation and sustainabilityInnovation and sustainability
Human capabilities rather than resource endowments are the key to development
Innovation systems approach must be changed to accept this important facet of development
A new approach to knowledge production and diffusion
Problem of commodification of knowledgeBring in sustainability in innovation
systems research
Energy Innovations Central to Energy Innovations Central to SustainabilitySustainability
Arguably, the most crucial innovation challenge facing humanity is in the energy sector
Clean and affordable sources of energy are essential for reducing poverty and improving standard of living
What is the major focus of energy policy in rich countries?
Carbon-based energy innovations are short-sighted
Bio-fuels unsustainable innovation. Why?
Bio-fuelsBio-fuels
Economics of turning food into fuelEthics of using food as fuelGlobal food crisisWestern countries blaming growing
India and China for the problemWhat is the truth?UN Rome Summit on Global Food CrisisWhat sort of bio-fuels can be considered
sustainable?Non-food biomass, switch grass,
jatropha
Energy InnovationsEnergy Innovations
Increasing energy efficiencyCarbon capture and storageSolar energySynthetic biology (advances in genetic
engineering)WindGeothermalFusionNuclear?
A Global Compact for A Global Compact for Sustainable InnovationSustainable Innovation
A concerted global compact to develop and transfer clean and zero emission technologies to developing countries
Any models?International innovation system and
technology transfer model that led to the “Green Revolution”
Thank you!