Social Innovation for a Just Sustainable Development: Integrating the Wellbeing of Future People

Rita Vasconcellos Oliveira

doi:10.3390/su13169013

Abstract

Social innovation has gained increased attention as a mechanism for sustainable development. As the Brundtland Commission highlights, the improvement of present conditions should not compromise future generations’ needs. So far, (social) sustainable development has mostly focused on the amelioration of contemporary people’s wellbeing, relegating its duties towards future generations to second place. Given this, I consider it necessary to (re-)direct social innovation towards the promotion of the wellbeing of future people. I propose the concept of irreplaceable goods, a notion deriving from a strong sustainability perspective, which could then be integrated into social innovation practices related to sustainable development. Focusing on guaranteeing, at least, sufficient fruition of certain goods and resources, I devise this concept as a governance tool for steering development actions towards intergenerational justice, driven by social innovation action. In this article, we firstly delineate the relations between sustainable development and social innovation, while focusing on ‘value-driven’ social innovation. Afterward, I shortly introduce strong sustainability as support for future generations’ wellbeing. Furthermore, I develop the concept of irreplaceable goods as a governance tool in social innovation practices and finalize with a discussion on the application of irreplaceable goods in the assessment of sustainable development strategies.

Highlights

In the last years, social innovation (SI) has become an increasingly employed concept in research, policymaking and the media [1]
When future eco-socio-economic scenarios are involved, there is always incertitude associated with projections and estimations, which might serve as a justification for supporting actions that promote savings of irreplaceable goods
Despite the relevant place of innovation in many sustainable development (SD) strategies, it still lacks ensuring that the interests and wellbeing of future generations (FG) are systematically taken into account

Summary

Introduction

Social innovation (SI) has become an increasingly employed concept in research, policymaking and the media [1]. The Brundtland Commission advised the countries to change their actions towards a sustainable socioeconomic development [13] The plea was such that it urged the nations to improve the present conditions of their population without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. FG wellbeing still plays a central in the moral reasoning about SD since the pioneering work of the Brundtland report [16] This influence is visible in the several normative approaches to intergenerational justice developed after. It is not a new claim that SI can facilitate SD and be a valid strategy to promote the transition of communities towards sustainable lifestyles It still falls short on properly ensuring that such transition does not jeopardize FG’s wellbeing. The article includes at the end, a discussion on how to generally apply the notion of the irreplaceable good in the assessment of SD strategies

Social Innovation as an Instrument for a Fair Sustainable Development

Reclaiming Future People’s Wellbeing in the Social Innovation Landscape

Strong Sustainability

Integrating Future Generations Wellbeing in SI Practices

Conclusions