Innovating for Sustainability Requires More than Technology

This article draws upon insights shared at a panel “Innovating to Zero: Subtracting Carbon, Adding IP”, which TFGI Founding Executive Director Ming Tan moderated at this year’s Global Forum on Intellectual Property, presented by Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and IPOS International. Panellists were Catherine Chammartin, Director General of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property; Prof Irene Calboli is Professor of Law from the Texas A&M University School of Law; Prof Oded Shoseyov, Professor of Plant Molecular Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and Paul Davis, Managing Director of EverEdge Global.

By Ming Tan, Founding Executive Director, Tech for Good Institute

The need to chart new pathways to low-carbon and inclusive growth is particularly urgent in Southeast Asia. Energy-related emissions from Southeast Asia are expected to more than double by 2030, as governments pursue development agendas for some of the fastest growing populations in the world. Together with emissions over decades by advanced economies, the rise of man-made greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has been linked to our region’s increasing natural disasters

Our age is what many now call the Anthropocene, the period when human activity has had a significant impact on our planet’s climate and ecosystems. It is through human activity that global warming and climate change threaten the lives, livelihoods, and ways of life of current and future generations.

And yet, what enabled humans to have such an impact on our planet may also be what we need in order to address this existential challenge of our times–our ingenuity. 

Humans are unique in our capacity to build on existing knowledge to innovate. From stone tools onwards, human ingenuity has allowed us to survive and thrive through resource scarcity, climatic changes, challenging landscapes, and ecosystem instability.

How might we use our ingenuity to meet what John Doerr has called the “mother of all OKRs” – to halve our carbon emissions by 2030 and to be carbon-zero by 2050?

Innovation is a social endeavour

The goal of innovation is not to create something new, but to do something better. As Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Professor Oded Shoseyov quoted, “The stone age did not end for lack of stones. Our reliance on fossil fuels should not end because we are running out of oil, but because we have invented better solutions.” 

Indeed, human ingenuity is best employed in the service of our society. 

Yet, who determines what “good” might mean? Are the interests of end-users of technologies balanced with shareholder interests of companies working for commercial return? How might governments meet the current needs of the electorate while stewarding  resources for future generations? 

This is where citizens play an important role. The policies of the day can either reflect today’s current state, or be a catalyst for change. To that end, though the climate crisis is transnational in nature, local solutions are needed if they are to reflect the values, cultures, and aspirations of the community. 

Innovating to zero needs IP and other intangible assets

The past decade has seen a rise in intellectual property (IP) filings related to environmental goals, driven by investments into environment, social, and governance (ESG) focused initiatives. 

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation, international patents filed in renewable energy rose 547 per cent between 2002 and 2012. Green energy and energy-efficient technologies saw similar growth. However, innovation gaps remain, such as in the fields of energy storage and carbon sequestration in oceans. 

While we have seen the rise of technical inventions over the last two decades, impact is only realised when inventions are brought to market and customers adopt new solutions. At first glance, IP protection poses a tension between allowing proprietary rights for return on investment and the need to advance the public good. Yet, IP incentivises the innovation so that smaller companies can stand their ground against larger incumbents. IP also provides the framework for different modalities of partnership so that innovation may be brought to market, from licensing to sharing trade secrets. 

A whole portfolio of intangible assets: patents, data, know-how, relationships and brand–to name a few–need to work together to shift customer expectations. The good news is that the market is responding to this huge and urgent opportunity, as evidenced by capital flows attesting to the commercial viability of investments in ESG innovation. 

Digital technologies can be a horizontal enabler to realise impact

The paradigm shift we need to see in all sectors will be realised through thoughtful innovation at each incremental step across the supply chain. Nano-cellulose, for example, is not only exciting in its potential for regenerative flexible packaging, but its impact is amplified by identifying waste paper pulp as a raw material.  Traceability across the supply chain and circular models are increasingly important for compliance, supply chain resilience, and customer satisfaction. Digital technologies and data are critical to enabling confidence in traceability. 

Trusted data is also vital for effective carbon markets. Direct-air capture technologies can remove historic CO2 emissions at scale, while light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors can monitor forests digitally for carbon stock monitoring and generation of carbon credits. At the heart of many of these solutions is verifiable data. Just as importantly, digitalisation’s ability to scale matches the urgency of addressing the climate challenge and the potential of these technical advancements. 

Sustainability is inherently complex. We are juggling multiple objectives for peace and prosperity for people and planet, with multiple stakeholders and multiple timelines. We need urgent action to address immediate challenges, while taking a long-term view for how decisions impact future generations. Sustainability thus requires a systems approach to understand how the issues are interconnected, how initiatives and policies can align and be coherent, and how to weigh imminent and downstream risks. Digital technologies are uniquely suited to support such complex challenges. 

At the Tech for Good Institute, we believe that digitalisation and sustainability are likely to be basic operating assumptions for all businesses, big or small, established or startup.  All these are critical if we are to enable inclusive prosperity in Southeast Asia in an ecologically sustainable manner.

Download Report

Download Report

Latest Updates

Latest Updates​

Keep pace with the digital pulse of Southeast Asia!

Never miss an update or event!

Mouna Aouri

Programme Fellow

Mouna Aouri is an Institute Fellow at the Tech For Good Institute. As a social entrepreneur, impact investor, and engineer, her experience spans over two decades in the MENA region, South East Asia, and Japan. She is founder of Woomentum, a Singapore-based platform dedicated to supporting women entrepreneurs in APAC through skill development and access to growth capital through strategic collaborations with corporate entities, investors and government partners.

Dr Ming Tan

Founding Executive Director

Dr Ming Tan is founding Executive Director for the Tech for Good Institute, a non-profit founded to catalyse research and collaboration on social, economic and policy trends accelerated by the digital economy in Southeast Asia. She is concurrently a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore and Advisor to the Founder of the COMO Group, a Singaporean portfolio of lifestyle companies operating in 15 countries worldwide.  Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology, business and society, including sustainability and innovation.

 

Ming was previously Managing Director of IPOS International, part of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, which supports Singapore’s future growth as a global innovation hub for intellectual property creation, commercialisation and management. Prior to joining the public sector, she was Head of Stewardship of the COMO Group and the founding Executive Director of COMO Foundation, a grantmaker focused on gender equity that has served over 47 million women and girls since 2003.

 

As a company director, she lends brand and strategic guidance to several companies within the COMO Group. Ming also serves as a Council Member of the Council for Board Diversity, on the boards of COMO Foundation and Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC), and on the Digital and Technology Advisory Panel for Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay, Singapore’s national performing arts centre.

 

In the non-profit, educational and government spheres, Ming is a director of COMO Foundation and Singapore Network Information Centre (SGNIC) and chairs the Asia Advisory board for Swiss hospitality business and management school EHL. She also serves on  the Council for Board Diversity and the Digital and Technology Advisory Panel for Esplanade–Theatres on the Bay, Singapore’s national performing arts centre.

 

Ming was educated in Singapore, the United States, and England. She obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford University and her doctorate from Oxford.