How Frugal Innovation Promotes Social Sustainability
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sustainability Article How Frugal Innovation Promotes Social Sustainability Rakhshanda Khan LUT School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lahti 15140, Finland; rakhshanda.khan@lut.fi; Tel.: +358-408-225-592 Academic Editor: Yongrok Choi Received: 27 June 2016; Accepted: 11 October 2016; Published: 15 October 2016 Abstract: There is a need to develop an understanding of how frugal innovation promotes social sustainability. The objective of this paper is to find the connections between the two concepts of social sustainability and frugal innovation, by reviewing the existing literature concerning both fields. This paper presents a framework that identifies essential themes of social sustainability and explores them through frugal innovation. The framework builds on the important themes of social sustainability and shows their relevance in practice through frugal innovation. The notion of frugal innovation can be viewed as an approach towards realizing social sustainability and fulfilling the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Keywords: social sustainability; frugal innovation; practice; Sustainable Development Goals 1. Introduction Within the sustainability discourse, the social pillar is considered of utmost importance, alongside the other two pillars of sustainable development—environmental and economic. Social sustainability is focused on the development of programs and processes that promote social interaction and cultural enrichment. It emphasizes protecting the vulnerable while respecting social diversity and is related to more basic needs of happiness, safety, freedom, dignity and affection [1]. Notably, the key challenges of sustainable development reside at the interfaces and trade-offs between its various dimensions [2]. Therefore, it is essential to develop the concept of social sustainability by adopting the integrating framework of sustainability [3]. Both the environmental and economic aspects of sustainable development are intertwined with the social pillar. For example, it is perhaps not possible to either achieve happiness in a society that is economically disadvantaged or have a healthy community if air quality is poor. According to Torjman [4], “human well-being cannot be sustained without a healthy environment and is equally unlikely in the absence of a vibrant economy”. Keeping the above principle in view, this paper seeks to highlight how social sustainability is strongly linked to frugal innovation. “Frugal innovation refers to products (both goods and services), processes, or marketing and organizational methods that seek to minimize the use of material and financial resources with the objective of reducing the cost of ownership while fulfilling or even exceeding certain pre-defined criteria of acceptable quality standards” [5]. Through frugal innovation, economically disadvantaged communities have been able to solve various problems pertaining to health, education or energy and uplift their standard of living. Frugal innovation has made a significant impact on society because it has aimed to solve pressing societal problems through ingenuity while simultaneously generating revenue. It has been argued before that businesses can play a critical role towards achieving sustainable development [6,7] and do untold good for the society [8]. Furthermore, frugal innovation has the potential to improve a company’s sustainability performance [9]. However, the social benefits that frugal innovation can offer to the society have not been discussed considerably. The objective of this paper is to find the connections between the two concepts of social sustainability and frugal innovation, by reviewing the existing literature concerning both fields. Sustainability 2016, 8, 1034; doi:10.3390/su8101034 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2016, 8, 1034 2 of 29 SustainabilityThe objective2016, 8, 1034 of this paper is to find the connections between the two concepts of social2 of 29 sustainability and frugal innovation, by reviewing the existing literature concerning both fields. 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