By Laura Zapata, Academic Associated Dean of Business School of Tecnológico de Monterrey.
More and more we find organizations that have assumed a strong commitment to sustainable development. Companies that have a culture of transformation and innovation, a culture that identifies and develops capabilities to continually reinvent themselves, create new products and services with high impact on the community.
This is how innovation plays an essential role in the transition towards a sustainable world, so it seems that having national innovation systems and country-level strategies for economic development makes this transition easier. In Latin America, for example, Argentina distinguishes axes for sustainable development, such as those related to the development of the food industry, mining and tourism; Costa Rica has had a clear focus on ecotourism for years; and Chile does the same with the wine, tourism and aquaculture industries.
Although Latin America has a long tradition of scientific and technological development policies, in our days, this is neither clear nor simple. The region faces various challenges, such as poor coordination between companies, high levels of corruption, a shortage of qualified labor, and the limited capacity of governments to act. This reduces the effectiveness of public policy implementation. There are tensions inherent in key regional development activities, including: economic growth, social inequality and environmental sustainability; Therefore, this makes it difficult to consider a single governance for innovation and sustainable development.
To understand how Latin American countries act in terms of innovation and sustainable development, the article published in 'Challenges for Innovation and Sustainable Development in Latin America: The Significance of Institutions and Human Capital' analyzes two international rankings: The Global Innovation Index (“The Global Innovation Index”) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Report. With respect to innovation, the most valued dimensions are: telecommunications infrastructure and business sophistication, the latter translated into having highly qualified workers, and the assimilation of knowledge that organizations have to take advantage of market opportunities. However, at the bottom of the ranking are the dimensions of institutions, the political and regulatory environment for innovation in the countries of the region. There is no national effort coordinated by institutions that support and encourage innovation.
The Sustainable Development Report identifies that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the greatest development in Latin America are climate action, the eradication of poverty and quality education. These results indicate that socioeconomic indicators are priority objectives of the national strategy of Latin American countries, since many of them show a positive trend in these indicators. However, some obstacles must be overcome such as high levels of social inequality and lack of innovation (SDG10: reduce inequality and SDG 9: industry, innovation and infrastructure).
This is where Latin American countries should consider the proposal of economist Mariana Mazzucato, who points out that the challenges of sustainable development create concrete problems that can drive innovation in multiple sectors and actors. According to this approach, the creation of products and services that promote new business models transform existing technologies and value chains, which in turn will impact the development of countries in all its aspects. So, if we were to think about an action plan for this proposal, we would say that the organizations are those who promote the sustainable development of the region based on their talent and capacity for innovation aimed at combating the challenges defined by the UN for Latin America: social inclusion, protection social, violence, citizen security, environment, climate change and disaster risk management.
The transition towards sustainability in Latin America requires an innovation ecosystem made up of universities, research centers and companies, so it would be plausible to think that these autonomous ecosystems are where sustainable innovation can emerge that allows economic, social and environmental development. region of.
Originally published in El Financiero.