Barriers to the development and uptake of innovations in the forest sector – (1) lack of innovation culture; (2) risk; (3) potential limitations in various forms of capital; and (4) unsupportive policies and regulations – are described below.
Lack of innovation culture
An innovative culture is one that encourages curiosity, creativity and risk-taking,174 but the prevalent culture may be unfriendly to new ideas and “outsiders”, thus limiting the scope of innovation and the willingness to adopt new tools, products, processes and approaches. The various actors in an innovation ecosystem (see Box 5) have strategies and trajectories they tend to defend; such “path dependence”175 can work against change because vested interests will protect their historical positions and market share.176 This can have the effect of quelling innovations through market control and lobbying before they have a chance to get off the ground. In some cases, an industry might even fund organizations to suppress innovations from outside their sector as a means for maintaining their positions.177 Disrupting existing systems to enable innovation is a significant challenge.
A cultural shift may also be required away from the historically dominant view of innovation as primarily a means for improving efficiency, economic gains and competitiveness towards a more aspirational approach. This would acknowledge that innovation is multifaceted and should enable the realization of wide-ranging goals and values, such as those related to viable livelihoods, social well-being and resource conservation and sustainability. A culture that recognizes and embraces the transformative potential of innovation can help de-risk innovation processes and empower stakeholders to look beyond business as usual to respond to current and future challenges. All forest stakeholders can play a role in promoting and supporting an innovation culture that seeks to tackle problems in ways that minimize negative consequences and address the structural barriers to gender equality and women’s empowerment.
In many contexts, therefore, developing an innovative culture may require a boost – that is, something that drives the development of skills, routines, behaviours and connections with other actors in an innovation ecosystem that will facilitate innovation creation and adoption. Tools are available to help develop an appropriate environment for sustaining an innovative culture, such as the Create Incentives and Opportunities tool developed by the UN Innovation Network, which presents techniques that can be used to encourage innovation and ultimately to build, within an organization, a culture that fosters innovation.178 For example, recognizing and rewarding innovation can help foster a conducive culture, and so can incentivizing innovative behaviours by upskilling individuals and aligning projects with personal values and interests. Crucially, an innovation culture also requires the dedication of sufficient time and resources to “being innovative”.
Risk
Innovating is inherently risky, with a significant proportion of innovations – perhaps as high as 95 percent179 – failing to meet the expectations of stakeholders. Avoiding the risks posed by innovation can reinforce path dependence in an innovation ecosystem and hamper innovation creation and adoption (Box 10). The introduction of new products or processes involves a range of transaction costs, and the risk of failure must be considered, particularly in low-capital and low-risk-tolerance contexts. Moreover, the adoption of an innovation without proper consideration of the context (that is, whether it is the right innovation for the right place for the right reasons) can have negative impacts. For example, innovations designed for large-scale operations may provide economies of scale for larger companies and increase their competitive advantage, putting at risk smallholders and other marginalized groups and communities.129 Such risks might be mitigated by facilitating the access of marginalized actors to innovation creation and incentivizing the development of scaled-down and context-appropriate innovations suitable for smaller-scale operations.
Box 10The example of Katerra
The mass-timber manufacturer Katerra, a start-up construction company, promised to revolutionize building construction in the United States of America through a new business model of vertical integration and modularization involving mass timber. Although the overall business concept of factory-built housing has significant promise, the company declared bankruptcy in 2021 after investing over USD 2 billion.181 Other mass-timber manufacturers in North America also declared bankruptcy or ceased operations between 2021 and 2023. The construction sector is tied heavily to existing relationships and accepted ways of doing business, each of which serves to resist change – it is often easier to continue doing business as usual rather than developing a new relationship with the supplier of a substitute product.
In some instances, innovation may be more likely to succeed when the incorporation of traditional or Indigenous knowledge is prioritized. In the realm of data-driven technological innovations, specific risks can also emerge associated with the collection, use and ownership of data, such as those related to market concentration and interactions between smallholders and larger companies and organizations. Policies and regulations can be used to help prevent the emergence of disparities and the unequal distribution of benefits arising from the adoption of technological innovations.71, 180
While favouring stability in the short term, prioritizing risk reduction may hamper the innovation necessary for adaptation to evolving environmental conditions, market demands and technological advances. Governments and other stakeholders can help achieve an appropriate balance between risk and stability by supporting opportunities for learning about innovation creation and adoption processes and fostering collaboration.
Potential limitations in various forms of capital
A study by Roshetko et al. (2022) on the uptake of innovative forest-sector technologies in the Asia-Pacific region identified potential limitations in various forms of capital – human, natural, physical, financial and social – as a barrier to adoption (Table 4) (the same study cited unsupportive policies and regulations as an additional barrier).129 This finding is likely to be relevant in other regions and for other innovation types, especially in the Global South. Different countries and regions may be subject to different limitations in the five forms of capital. For example, financial capital may be materially limited in one region and natural capital (e.g. a lack of access to forests and forest products) may be a more significant limitation or barrier in another.
TABLE 4Five forms of capital, the lack of which comprises a barrier to the uptake of innovative technologies by the forest sector in the Asia-Pacific region
Just as products can be designed for easy disassembly (e.g. to improve the potential for circularity), design for adoption can increase innovation success. One-size-fits-all approaches are bound to end in failure – for example, digital solutions are unlikely to be of use to people with limited access to electricity or the internet (i.e. lack of physical capital). The high cost of many innovations restricts their adoption to those with significant resources (financial capital),182 and top-down approaches are also unlikely to succeed, even if well-designed (social capital). For example, the widespread adoption of improved cookstoves that reduce indoor air pollution and fuel consumption183 has been hindered by high upfront costs, resistance among users to changing their traditional cooking habits, and the lack of tailored solutions to meet specific community needs; moreover, there has been a lack of recognition of the role of smoke from traditional fires in repelling insects.184, 185
A lack of social capital has hindered many innovative forest restoration projects, contributing, for example, to poor planning, inappropriate species selection, poor land preparation, and difficulties in ensuring community engagement and participation (a lack of long-term funding – financial capital – has been another major obstacle).186, 187 A lack of social capital (e.g. insufficient market access and a lack of training and capacity development) is also a significant contributor to poor success rates in innovations promoting alternative livelihoods based on forest resources such as ecotourism, NWFPs and sustainable wood harvesting, along with a lack of financial capital related to market fluctuations and limited demand for forest-based products beyond local or niche markets.188, 189 A lack of customary access to land and resources (natural capital) can inhibit the engagement of local communities and Indigenous Peoples in forest-sector innovation.
Unsupportive policies and regulations
The study by Roshetko et al. (2022) found examples (in Asia and the Pacific region) of where policy development has lagged the development of technologies and lacked the necessary flexibility and reactivity to enable technology adoption.129 This is an inherent problem for innovation because, almost by definition, innovations emerge in an existing environment of policies and regulations, which may act to restrict or distort innovation uptake or, in contrast, enable unregulated, potentially risky developments from innovations. This shows the importance of continuously adapted policy and regulatory environments for harnessing innovation.
