Understanding and evaluating the sustainability of frugal water innovations in México: An exploratory case study

Abstract

Due to their potential economic, social, and environmental benefits, frugal innovations have gained the attention of firms, policy-makers, and researchers, particularly with respect to the needs of communities at the Bottom of the Pyramid. However, there is a lack of comprehensive systematic approaches to evaluate their impact on sustainable development certainly in geographical regions with limited available data. Hence, this study evaluated the sustainability of two latent frugal innovations in México and the motivation of their innovators, specifically of an ecological wastewater treatment plant and a rainwater harvesting system. Applying a case study methodology, the two cases were investigated using an online questionnaire, expert interviews, document analysis, and a recently developed sustainability evaluation framework. The results showed that frugal innovations are related to the concepts of catalytic and social innovation, sharing motivations by innovators and innovations’ features. In addition, the results of the sustainability assessment by experts, which is rooted in the Sustainable Development Goals showed that both cases did not infringe any of the 17 goals, had a neutral impact on 33% and 48% of the SDGs and positively impacted all three dimensions of sustainability with a slight emphasis on social sustainability (with 31% and 19% of the overall impact). The present study proved that the framework is a useful and accessible tool for diverse actors, including innovators aiming to communicate the impact of their solutions or identifying risks/alerts at scaling-up phases. While the explorative nature and the limited number of cases investigated limits the scope for generalisation, the in-depth study of the selected cases of water innovation in their specific contexts nevertheless produced valuable insights for further research, especially regarding the integrated investigation of social, frugal and catalytic perspectives on innovation in Central and Latin America, and the quantification of impacts on sustainable development using comprehensive research approaches.