(Eco)Innovation in Organizations
The text (Un)Sustainability and Organization Studies: Towards a Radical Engagement by ERGENE, S. et al. reflects on how organizations deal with the Anthropocene in various aspects. The Anthropocene is a geological period characterized by dominant human influence on ecosystem functioning, encompassing climate change, species extinction, ocean acidification, among others.
The text spans epistemological, ontological, disciplinary reflections and academic engagement on the topic. For the context of this text, I will highlight the former two.
The epistemological approach concerns two lines of thought that emerged at the beginning of environmental studies: managerial and critical.
The managerial approach prioritizes the economic interests of companies over nature and sustainability, treating them as tools or strategies for creating value. The ultimate goal is to continue increasing profit by delivering products to the market with added value or reducing production costs. The author argues that although some novel company solutions help slow the crisis, they do not end it, as they are incremental.
The critical approach argues that we should look at the topic prioritizing ecological well-being, local communities, and justice. Nature has intrinsic value regardless of the value humans attribute to it. The relentless pursuit of economic growth will lead to an ecological crisis; in other words, it is not a sustainable long-term model and is not purely economic but involves political aspects.
In the context of ontology, the authors present two opposing lines of thought: realist and relational. The realist view presents causal relationships independent of the context in which it is inserted. It depicts the natural environment as a separate entity from humans, considering ecological problems and social concerns as distinct domains. It adopts a linear approach where problems can be solved by organizations. The relational approach opposes this by arguing that the world is a vast entanglement between humans and non-humans, together creating the conditions in which we live. Therefore, there is no separation between humans and the environment, as we are part of nature. Social and environmental problems cannot be separated, and the ecological crisis is a network of issues constituted by human and non-human practices. The approach to intervening and avoiding the crisis would be to create networks of corporations, regulators, civil society, and non-humans. It is a complex problem that must consider the entire network.
Bringing these two antagonistic approaches to light, a reflection that occurs is regarding the role of innovation in organizational studies, particularly how organizations manage strategic innovation. When we look at several definitions, innovation has a strong approach linked to value creation related to economic growth. Innovation within companies refers to introducing new ideas, methods, products, services, or processes aimed at improving efficiency, solving problems, meeting customer needs, or driving growth. This is very similar to the managerial view presented in the text, where the goal of innovation is to increase the institution’s competitiveness, boosting its gains or decreasing its costs.
Innovation within institutions is not usually used with a bias towards improving ecological well-being, local communities, environmental justice with access to clean water and air, nutrition, and land, regardless of wealth and other social disparities among populations; it is only objectively and selfishly used to increase value for shareholders.
Recently, new concepts of innovation have emerged with the objective of looking beyond corporate boundaries, integrating societal and ecological issues into institutional innovation programs. Terms like eco-innovation, sustainable innovation, and green innovation stand out. These terms, in varying intensities, consider ways to innovate by placing the relationship between environment and society at the center, as something intrinsically related and not detached, contrary to the realist ontology view.
Get Marireznicek’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The video below describes what eco-innovation and sustainability innovation are, showing the difference between the two terms. While sustainability innovation aims to balance economic performance with environmental and societal benefits, Eco-innovation takes a step further, thinking about how to restore and regenerate what has already been compromised. Even in the video, they argue that these innovations can help economic growth and be beneficial for countries and companies that adopt them in terms of attracting investment.
To understand more about the different types of innovation involved in this field, I recommend the article: Eco-Innovation, Sustainability, and Business Model Innovation by Open Innovation Dynamics (PICHLAK, M., SZROMEK, A.), access link: https://www.mdpi.com/2199-8531/7/2/149.
With the advent of these “new” forms of innovation, we can challenge companies to think more broadly and critically. When we talk about agribusiness, this subject becomes even more relevant since production in this sector is an “open-air factory,” and any variation in climatic conditions directly and primarily affects the productivity of farmers’ fields. This has a direct social impact, considering that many municipalities in the interior of our country are highly dependent on this industry.
When we talk about cooperatives, It would be interesting for these large institutions to adopt an innovation management focused not only on economic growth but also on how to strengthen their cooperators and the entire society surrounding them
In the world, there are very interesting but isolated initiatives being conducted with eco-innovation practices in agriculture. Some examples are:
- CAMTA (Brazil)
The Cooperativa Agrícola Mista de Tomé-Açu uses agroforestry systems that simulate native forests, promoting environmental and social sustainability.
2. TAMERA (Portugal)
Tamera is an ecovillage situated in Alentejo, occupying 134 hectares in an arid terrain in the Beja district. Its goal is to be a model of an ecologically sustainable, self-sufficient, and decentralized future at the regional and social levels. Initiated in 1978 by a small group of people, Tamera is currently a community with around 160 collaborators working on creating autonomous and decentralized models for a post-capitalist world, along with others who share the Terra Nova vision.
As discussed in the original text, it is necessary to challenge the way we think about current business concepts, including the incorporation of sustainability into organizational studies, but also the very definition of innovation. Innovation is much more than just applying novelties for the growth of a particular institution; it is an essential path to avoiding the Anthropocene. To this end, we must strengthen innovation lines that encompass a network view and deal with the environment and society as one, learning from what is being built in other parts of the world.
