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Sustainable innovations in enterprises

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2.1 What are societal challenges?

On 25 September 2015, the United Nations published a document titled Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which contained 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) (UN, 2015).

The 17 SDGs reflect the problems that every society faces. For this reason, the goals are recognised globally and will be around for at least the next 15 years. The United Nations’ SDGs are all encompassing global targets to end poverty and hunger completely and ensure clean water for all.

Another example that can be used to illustrate societal problems is the European Union’s Horizon 2020 (EU, 2013), a research and innovation programme. The aims of Horizon 2020 reflect the policy priorities of the Europe 2020 strategy and address major concerns and societal challenges shared by citizens in Europe and elsewhere.

Horizon 2020 is the financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe’s global competitiveness.
Seen as a means to drive economic growth and create jobs, Horizon 2020 has the political backing of Europe’s leaders and the Members of the European Parliament. They agreed that research is an investment in our future and so put it at the heart of the EU’s blueprint for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and jobs.
By coupling research and innovation, Horizon 2020 is helping to achieve this with its emphasis on excellent science, industrial leadership and tackling societal challenges. The goal is to ensure Europe produces world-class science, removes barriers to innovation and makes it easier for the public and private sectors to work together in delivering innovation.

(EU, 2013)

This approach brings together resources and knowledge across different fields, technologies and disciplines, including social sciences and the humanities. Societal issues can include the following challenges:

health, demographic change and wellbeing
food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine, maritime and inland water research, and the bioeconomy
secure, clean and efficient energy
smart, green and integrated transport
climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials
Europe in a changing world – inclusive, innovative and reflective societies
secure societies – protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

It is important for entrepreneurs and innovators to understand the industry, market sector or specialist area which they wish to enter or in which they operate. A good understanding of the specialist area includes an understanding of aspects such as technological changes, social pressures, government regulations and competitors.

Activity 4 Addressing societal challenges

Timing: Allow about 30 minutes

Listen to the audio recording in which practitioners from three different specialist areas – engineering, science and information technology; creative, leisure and cultural industries; and health and social care – share their experiences of how to identify and address societal challenges using entrepreneurship and innovation. You will then start thinking about your own specialist area.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: b327_openlearn_aug001.mp3

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Transcript

NARRATOR

You’re going to hear from representatives of organisations sharing their experiences of how to identify and address societal challenges using entrepreneurship and innovation.

First of all, Richard Goodhead , Senior Vice-President, marketing at Rolls Royce Civil Aerospace.

RICHARD GOODHEAD

Rolls Royce plc effectively provides power for use in land, sea and air, whether that’s in civilian aircraft use, defence use, marine use, power generation on land, or nuclear power, but specifically my area of the business is related to civil aerospace so that’s providing engines that power aircraft that are used in commercial use whether that is for airlines or in the realm of business aviation.

Once you’ve made the assumption, in terms of societal impact, that air travel is a good thing for society, some people believe that, some people don't. Obviously, I'm biased, I think it's a great economic contribution to society and it connects people, not just for business reasons, but for a whole host of other reasons. People like to travel to see each other and it's that person to person contact that makes the world go round.

In providing the propulsion systems that allow aeroplanes to connect people and make the world a smaller place, then clearly we are meeting some societal needs but we have to do it in as responsible a way as we possibly can. And, obviously the way that aeroplanes are currently powered is through the use of fossil fuels so to minimise that and make it as clean and efficient as possible is a goal that we've been striving for at Rolls Royce for many years. Not least of which because it doesn’t only meet environmental requirements but it, because there's competition in our industry, the person with the most efficient engine usually wins so we've always spent lots of our research and technology investment on doing just that.

JO HALL

My name is Jo Hall. I'm the founder and director of Creative Stirling. Creative Stirling is a membership-driven organisation founded originally as a community interest company and now a charity. Our vision for Stirling is that it is a lively and culturally livened place for everyone who lives, works and visits.

For example Made in Stirling, our shop which supports artists to retail their work, but other aspects of what we do, we're supporting learning creative education and creative learning and cultural activity. And to me people's cultural lives are as important as food and drink.

Working from information that was coming out of the creative and cultural sector what they needed, you know, it was we need spaces to sell, we want there to be more events and festivals and activities, you know we want spaces for artists' studios so those were the founding principles of our original business plan.

The point of it is it's for the local economy it's to support local artists' livelihoods and in amongst that there's a lot of support of their wellbeing, because you get people who can also learn what sells, how to display their stuff.

Basically we want to support skilled artists and designers to be able to generate incomes through their work. That also generates income for Creative Stirling overall so that we can support the other things we do.

ALASTAIR DUNCAN

My name is Alastair Duncan and I'm Church of Scotland Minister in St George's Tron Church of Scotland in Glasgow City centre, which is where the Wild Olive Tree Café is located.

JODI DUNCAN

My name is Jodi Duncan and I am a manager at the Wild Olive Tree Café.

We are a café which addresses the issue of homelessness and poverty within the city of Glasgow. We have a couple of partner charities Glasgow City Mission and Bethany Christian Trust who also work with vulnerable and homeless people within the city.

ALISTAIR DUNCAN

Many of the people who we seek to help through the Wild Olive Tree Café are some of the more vulnerable people in the city. Some of those are people who come to the café to take advantage of the suspended soup and coffee scheme we have, whereby paying customers will give the cost of a free soup, or tea or coffee, as a donation and we then make that available. We do that because there are people who don’t have enough to eat and can't afford to eat in a café and so, without asking any questions, we are able to provide for people basic food once per day, each day that they come into the café. So those issues are clearly issues around poverty, hunger, destitution, physical want. But in addition, we seek through the Wild Olive Tree to make employability training placements available via our contacts with Bethany Christian Trust and Glasgow City Mission.

So we seek to address issues of work, readiness for work, building self esteem, giving people new skills and sometimes just confidence in getting into the workplace.

End transcript

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