Adapting to climate change is becoming more and more urgent. It is clear that climate risk cannot be managed by technical interventions alone.
For example, although developing drought-tolerant seeds might help farmers adapt to low rainfall, it won’t reduce agricultural risk if farmers can’t get the seeds, or if they do not want to eat or sell those crops.
Reducing climate risk needs to focus more on the reasons people are vulnerable. Social innovation may offer some lessons.
Social innovation has been defined as “a novel process or product that intends to generate more effective and just solutions to address complex social problems, for collective gain.”
We’re scholars who have been working on climate change adaptation and social innovation for a few decades and felt that there were useful connections to be made.
We reviewed recent global academic literature using the Scopus database. We found that relatively few peer-reviewed papers explicitly use the phrase “social innovation”, though the numbers are climbing. Use of the phrase is growing among climate adaptation practitioners. But, perhaps because the concept is still quite new in this field, it is often used quite superficially. This is why we are recommending a more theoretically grounded approach to applying social innovation in the climate adaptation field.
Our findings
Three themes emerged from the review:
Local, collaborative action: Some studies use social innovation to refer to the role of collaborative, community-driven initiatives to foster resilience to climate impacts.
For example, one study identified informal associations in Tanzania that supported income diversification and helped communities manage drought impacts. These local innovations — driven by citizens, rather than governments or markets — aim to empower individuals and strengthen community networks.
Innovation in government policy and practice: Other studies focus on innovation in government policy and practice.
For example, in urban Brazil, diverse stakeholders were brought together in a government effort to develop new flood risk reduction strategies. In France, coastal municipalities simulated the implementation of planned retreat as a climate adaptation strategy.
Social innovation as a normative need: A third group of climate adaptation studies uses social innovation not to describe existing efforts, but as something that needs to happen in future to overcome barriers to change.
For instance, in the American Midwest, new kinds of crops are becoming necessary to adapt to greater water scarcity. But researchers argue that this needs to be complemented by social innovations such as cooperatives that reduce individual farmers’ transaction costs with customers and regulators.
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How can social innovation guide climate change adaptation?
While climate adaptation scholars are beginning to use the term “social innovation” more frequently, it is not always clearly defined. It is also used in quite diverse and sometimes superficial ways.
One group in the UK defined social innovation in relation to flood management as “a novel response to a social need that produces tangible benefits, makes effective use of available resources and enhances the agency of those involved.”
We recommend a more consolidated approach to using social innovation within the climate adaptation context and identify three ways this might be considered.
The complementary role of different sectors
Most projects or studies on climate adaptation focus on a specific sector. They might emphasise the role of community groups, government agencies, or companies. But social innovation often relies on these different sectors coming together, contributing their diverse yet complementary resources and abilities.
For instance, the private sector has important abilities to design and pilot innovative approaches, while civil society groups possess vital local knowledge. The government can help scale innovations through public investment and regulations. Climate adaptation efforts can benefit from partnerships that bring these abilities together.
Interactions between scales
For innovations to take root, change needs to happen at different levels simultaneously. It is important to know what influences change at different levels. For example, effective climate adaptation will require individuals to think not only about their own interests but also those of the broader community. Similarly, individuals are influenced by the broader rules and norms in their communities and societies.
Climate adaptation efforts can learn from social movements that have simultaneously targeted individuals’ identities and emotions. They can also learn from government policy or business strategies.
Opportunities and risks associated with market-based approaches
Climate adaptation can learn from the social innovation that can occur through markets. Social entrepreneurs can develop new products or services that help communities adapt to climate change.
For instance, Lumkani is a small start-up in South Africa that developed a fire detection system for informal shacks. This is a novel and effective response to the severe problem of shack fires in informal settlements. This is a growing risk due to climate change. As a means to scale the distribution of this service, a larger insurance company bought Lumkani. It saw this as a way to reach lower-income customers.
This illustrates the potential role of corporations to help scale social innovations.
However, the social innovation literature cautions us about putting too much faith in the private sector alone. Sometimes, business responses may prop up unjust power structures. For instance, carbon markets or offsets may help reduce total emissions but could concentrate pollution in low-income communities.
There is thus a need for broad democratic participation in designing and implementing social innovations for climate adaptation.
This article was first published by The Conversation and written by Gina Ziervogel and Ralph Hamann.
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