Innovation as a key to success

Innovation is an important precondition for a successful transition to sustainable development. In addition to the rather more predictable need for technological innovation, societal innovation is also of paramount importance. Societal innovation will allow each and every individual to adopt a different pattern of values and set of relationships with her/his fellow citizen(s), the society at? large and the environment. In turn, this will induce behavioural change in which new attitudes will be more geared towards sharing, saving and recycling rather than towards possessing, rapid wasting and personal and, too often, even single use.

The concept of technological innovation should not be limited to big technological innovations, produced successfully and often rapidly and massively scaled- up by multinationals. An integrated whole of decentralized bottom-up approaches, deployed at a smaller scale should be seen as its necessary complement. In the end, such approaches will make services and goods accessible to a much bigger part of the population, including to those groups that previously have been left behind. They produce practical solutions, designed by local communities and/or entrepreneurs and even often through a co-creative process. As such, they address more specific needs and expectations, influenced by the particular ecological and cultural context in which these groups are living.