In our previous article, we demonstrated ‘How Africa Can Eliminate Poverty with Market-Creating Innovation’, but in this article, we consider another form of innovation that has its roots in sustainable development which can guide economic activities against inflicting more damages on the continent’s woes, and this concept is known as sustainable innovation.

1. By: CSR-in-Action
Sustainable Innovation: A Solution to Africa’s Poverty II

2. INTRODUCTION
In our mind’s eye, the Africa we see, is that continent which has long empowered the global
economy. Inversely, the real Africa today is largely engrossed with poverty, resulting from
depleted natural resources as well as irresponsible business models and political systems
that have inflicted economic woes on the continent. In our previous article, we
demonstrated ‘How Africa Can Eliminate Poverty with Market-Creating Innovation’, but in
this article, we consider another form of innovation that has its roots in sustainable
development which can guide economic activities against inflicting more damages on the
continent’s woes, and this concept is known as sustainable innovation.
Sustainable innovation lies at the heart of sustainability – a concept that integrates ethical,
environmental, social, and economic concerns into a business or development strategy. In
this case, it involves the creation of new market space, technologies, products and services,
processes, as well as new business and organisational models that not only accelerate
profits, but also improves the societal welfare and minimise environmental harms. It is not
just about developing new concepts or the need to create superior competitiveness as with
general innovation. Rather, sustainable innovation is about how economic development
system can ultimately be designed to eliminate harmful environmental and social impacts.
2 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II

3. 3 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II
One other outstanding feature of sustainable innovation is that it weighs the overall impact of
the innovation unlike other types of innovations, such as disruptive innovation and creative
destruction, which can replace old products with new ones without considering the socio-
environmental implications such as job losses.

4. Why this is Important to Africa?
The needs of Africa’s rapidly rising population can be met with sustainable innovation. We must
recall that the continent has been engulfed by poverty and hunger, but not as a result of
deficiency in natural resources and arable land to grow foods, rather, in several cases it is either
that the capacity of the environment has been compromised by poor support for the agricultural
sector or that the people are yet to innovate towards finding solution to their problems. As we
indicated in our previous article, Africa’s poverty rate is yet to spark creative thinking to either
benefit maximally from available resources or finding solution to the problems at hand. For
instance: In Kenya, approximately 80 per cent of land is suitable for beekeeping. Yet, the potential
of bee keeping and honey production has not been fully tapped in areas where the agro-
ecological and climatic conditions as well as the land use patterns are near perfect. [But] with the
diffusion of its model of sustainable community-based beekeeping [innovation], Honey Care
Africa (HCA) has been able to provide solutions to overcome these impediments.
The environmental impact has been significant. Honey Care Africa established a practice called
“Bees for Trees,” where communities and individuals working to promote agro-forestry and the
conservation of forests are given hives as a direct and immediate economic incentive to
encourage them to plant and protect trees. It also promotes the use and protection of local sub-
species of bees.
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5. 5 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II
[For socio-economic impacts, Honey Care Africa] purchases and markets 65-100 metric tons of
honey annually from roughly 20,000 hives managed by rural communities in Kenya. It works with
over 4,000 beekeepers, who earn on average US$1.76 per kilogramme of honey they produce. This
initiative creates additional employment opportunities through contracts (bee suits & smoker
manufacture) and upstream and downstream (timber & packaging materials) linkages.
Porter and Kramer, coined the term ‘Creating Shared Value’ to promote business innovation that
satisfies the broad needs of various stakeholders. With that, they revealed that a new innovation
purpose has emerged today, which reorients towards societal needs and “… is the central issue in
economic prosperity”.
This requires that we must rethink how we conduct businesses to create shared value, and
implement practices that preserve African natural resources and build their capacity to serve the
needs of the continent. Business activities, such as mining and oil and gas sectors, with huge
footprints that cause ecological hazards, depletes natural resources and compromise the capacity
of African agriculture from meeting the needs of the people can be redesigned with sustainable
innovation.

6. 6 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II
Interestingly, sustainable innovation is not about altruism and does not negate business success
and the pace of economic development as often misunderstood. Instead, businesses with
successful sustainable innovation are profitable because they integrate consideration of clean
design and resource conservation throughout product life cycles and supply chains in ways that
improve efficiency and brand reputation. For instance, Performance + Innovation + Sustainability
have become the new mantra for Nike’s future portfolio, seeing them add this latter pillar as a
driver for new products. [Nike’s] Flyknit innovation manages to create cool, high-performance
trainers that are lighter in weight, use less material, and integrate a novel manufacturing
technique that dramatically cuts manufacturing waste [and cost].

7. Collaborating for Sustainable Innovation
7 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II
For sustainable innovation to be realised in Africa, we
must unlock greater collaborations between nations
and institutions. In some instances one nation or
organisation alone cannot succeed and must work
with its peers because the challenges are bigger than
what any single nation’s resources can achieve.
An example is how industrial collaboration has facilitated the aviation industry in relation to
noise reduction, fuel efficiency, and alternative fuels. Ecological hazards and waste streams
formerly being generated at an unprecedented scale have been solved with industrial
collaboration which has redesigned aviation commercial activities.
To drive Africa’s development towards reducing poverty with sustainable innovation, we
must begin to look for insights from all the involved stakeholders and ensure collaboration
among nations and other institutions.

8. Retrospect
• How Africa Can Eliminate Poverty with Market-Creating Innovation I
• Can Businesses Really Exist Without Causing Harm?
• Why Extractive-Based Nations Fail: Between Resource and Knowledge-Based
Economies
• 2018: The Nigeria We Want
• Towards The Bleak Future of Crude Oil: What Nigeria Should Do Now
• Fiscal Sustainability: Between Nigeria’s Debt Plan and the 2018 Budget
• Mainstreaming Street Hawking in a Formal Economy: An Inclusive Approach to
Development
• Nigeria’s Economic Growth in 2018 and the Hope of the ‘Common Man’.
• The Reality of Nigeria’s Recession Exit: Between GDP Growth and Sustainable
Development
• Financial Inclusion: Are Nigerian Banks Getting it Right?
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9. Reference
1. Creating Shared Value
2. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (v. 1.0)
3. Five Differences with Sustainable Innovation.
4. Greater Awareness of the Effects of Innovation. Jan Willem Velthuijsen
5. Innovation for Sustainable Development: Local Cases Studies from Africa.
6. New View on Innovation from Christensen. Gregory Smith, December 24, 2014
7. Sustainable Innovation: A Competitive Advantage for Innovation Ecosystems. Kaisa
Oksanen, Antti Hautamäki, October 2015
8. Sustainable Innovation: Key conclusions from Sustainable Innovation Conferences
2003–2006. Martin Charter & Tom Clark, The Centre for Sustainable Design, May
2007
9. 3 Big Differences between Sustainable Innovation and Regular Innovation. Lavery
Pennell, 20 Jul 2015
10. Hands depicting collaboration. Digital Image. Lavery/Pennell. Web. 16 Feb 2018.
9 | Sustainable innovation: A solution to Africa’s Poverty II

10. About
CSR-in-Action is a conglomerate of 3 sustainability driven
businesses; Consulting, Training and Advocacy. Our mission is to
redefine the sustainability terrain in Africa, through collaborative
strategies with key stakeholders aimed at attaining higher levels of
corporate governance, workplace and sustainable philanthropy.
We have a clear vision to propel collective transformative action in
Africa by promoting responsibility amongst all entities in their day-
to-day individual or business activities.
Contact:
54, Udeco Medical Road,
Chevron Drive, Lekki Phase1,
Lagos State.
234-807-688-4871
info@csr-in-action.org
www.csr-in-action.org