SUSTAINABLE PATHWAYS
FOR NATURAL RESOURCE INDUSTRIES
Project Framework
Putting Natural Resources to work for sustainable development
There is an increasing interest in reconceiving our development model and the direction of growth. Latin America's economy is centered on the exploitation and export of its rich diversity of natural resources (NR)– a development trajectory that is non-sustainable in the long-term. The dominant view in development studies in Latin American Countries (LAC) is that we should induce structural change to move away from these industries and towards more knowledge-intensive sectors, such as manufactures. In this study we test this view.
We believe that NR-based industries or activities can be transformed into sustainable directions that better address economic, social and environmental challenges in the region. Our interest is thus not so much how to move away from NRs but how to transform NR activities, so they can best serve economic (resilience), social (justice) and environmental (sustainability) priorities in the region. The project aims to identify and explore alternatives that have the potential to transform the way in which these sectors work, promoting new and more sustainable directions.
The study is focused on three selected industries of relevance for the region: the exploitation of land for agricultural purposes in Argentina, sustainable exploitation of the Amazonean biodiversity in Brazil, and the exploitation of copper mines in Chile.
A transitions approach to study the potential transformation of NR based industries based on the emergence of three alternative pathways - path-breaking, path-repairing and path-creating.
A transitions approach to study the potential transformation of NR based industries based on the emergence of three alternative pathways - path-breaking, path-repairing and path-creating.
Analytical Framework
Alternative models of sustainable forest management in the Amazon [Photo from Brent Stirton, WWF]
Exploring different technological trajectories
An agroecological model of cotton production
Alternative models of sustainable forest management in the Amazon [Photo from Brent Stirton, WWF]
This research project is based on an analytical framework that encompasses literature on technological transitions (in a socio-technical regime) and innovation. It challenges the view that industries have intrinsic characteristics which make them more or less dynamic (in terms of innovation), and instead, explores how to transform them so that they can follow more sustainable pathways and better serve as a platform for development.
Industries get transformed and re-structured –the literature on innovation tells us– through the creation of alternatives, or new projects which propose technologies and organisational practices that depart from the conventional ones in a given industry. Within each industry there are dominant ways of solving problems and alternative ways of addressing them. The dominant ways are the ones more widely spread that privilege the mainstream, and are highly institutionalised, benefiting typically from a historic accumulation of technological, institutional, infrastructural and social supports. The alternatives are practices that departure from these highly institutionalised ways of solving problems, and typically promise different economic, social and/or environmental results than the dominant ways.
Marín and Smith (2010) consider three types of alternatives. The more radical ones will be truly (1) path-breaking, because they aim to transform the industry and eventually taking it in a different direction of change – or pathway. The less radical ones, instead, will be of two types: (2) path-repairing, when they offer partial solutions to some of the problems or negative impacts (whether social, environmental or economic) of the dominant regime, but do not challenge its main logic of development; and, (3) path-creating, when they create new pathways for innovation in sectors or industries closely related but different to the dominant one, augmenting the density of links among different industrial sectors.
Background Paper: Marín, A. and A. Smith (2010). "Towards a Framework for Analysing the Transformation of Natural Resource-based Industries in Latin America: The Role of Alternatives"
Methodological Paper: Marín, A. and J.M. Benavente (2011). "Evaluating Alternative Productions in Natural Resource-Based Industries in LAC: Can They Help to Transform Problematic NR Activities?"