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Oftentimes, technology and innovation-driven industrial growth is perceived to be the genesis of a growing threat to sustainable development. It's well documented that the fossil fuel driven industrial innovations are major sources of pollution, posing threat to our very existence. To deal with such growing menace, regulation of industrial activities has been a common proposition. Particularly, regulation is perceived to be the frequently proposed instrument for developing nations. But there is alternative to regulation. The investment in technology and innovation in creating possibilities of profitable competition for producing higher quality products by consuming fewer resources and causing less harm to the environment, could be an alternative. Even it could be far better substitute to the regulation.
In order to reduce poverty to meet the objective of 'No Poverty' by 2030, we need to engage growing number of people for productive activities, preferably in high paying industrial economy. In the absence of the growth in technology and innovation, it is neither economically nor environmentally a viable option to engage huge population of developing countries in productive activities. Instead of just relying on foreign technologies, these countries should rather focus on supporting local innovations to make existing productive activities to be cleaner and more competitive for creating room for employment of growing number of people-in a sustainable manner.
For reaching the target of "Zero Hunger" we need to produce more food from the gradually shrinking farmlands. For example, Bangladesh's per capita arable land has been reduced by almost 55 per cent during 1976-2010. To increase production from the same unit of land, farming inputs are being increased. The government has been increasing subsidy reaching to BDT90 billion in the recent budget. It's being reported that such increasing farming inputs including water, pesticide and fertilizer are reducing the sustainability of food production capacity of Bangladesh. Should we promote regulation in consumption of farming inputs? If we do so, what will be it's implication on food supply to meet zero hunger target. Or, should we make investment in precision farming technology and innovation in creating profitable possibilities of reducing the consumption of farming inputs to produce more, and most importantly, higher quality food? The later option appears to be more logical, if we can achieve it. Recent advancements indicate that such possibility could be realised, provided we take smart policy options in creating local market for precision farming technology and innovations.
For "Good Health and Well-Being", investment in supporting technology development and innovation appears to be a more acceptable solution than regulation. Starting from wearable technology for health monitoring to profitable opportunity of offering higher quality food at lower cost by taking the advantage of technology appears to be a reachable solution. Instead of empowering food regulator with additional police force to ensure food quality, empowering citizens with mobile phone based food quality analysis tools appears to be far more useful solution for safe food-- like fish, vegetables and fruits.
Access to energy to drive industrial economy has been major concern of sustainability, including climate change effect-- primarily caused by greenhouse gas emission. Despite many regulatory efforts, according to intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc), "global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70 per cent between 1970 and 2004." It has also been reported that "the largest growth in global GHG emissions between 1970 and 2004 has come from the energy supply sector (an increase of 145 per cent)". Despite the awareness of negative implications caused by modern energy supply, and the presence of regulation, the profitable opportunity of both consumption and production of modern energy such as electricity was driving the growth of GHG. It appears that regulation could not offer the solution we need: access to modern energy without causing harm to the environment. Rather the growth of battery technology is creating the profitable opportunity of making modern energy accessible, affordable-and most importantlym, clean energy. It's not due to regulation, rather due to the possibility of making huge profit, global scientific powerhouses and investment funds are competing to make clean renewable energy sources both accessible as well as cheaper options than dirty counter parts. Moreover, such development is opening the opportunity to make developing countries to be self-sufficient with modern energy by harnessing local renewable sources.
This improvement is going to make it easier for developing nations to meet other development goals as well. Therefore, it may not be unfair to reason that instead of being busy with regulation, we should make aggressive investment to empower us with technology to innovate cleaner energy solution to meet not only the goal number 07 of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs)-but also to make it easier to meet other goals.
Similarly, meeting the sustainable development goals --"Quality Education", and "Decent Work and Economic Growth" are poised to tremendously benefit from the progression of technology. Instead of allocating more funds for constructing school buildings and recruiting additional teachers, the purpose of offering quality education would likely be better served with the emergence of learning in virtual space technology over the Internet. For the first time in human history, the quality education could be democratised across the world. Global best learning places could be made available in real time in virtual and augmented environments to millions of students simultaneously across the world. Development of this technology is also opening the door to make people connected to remote machines to get useful work done anywhere in the world, in a safe and comfortable manner without leaving their homes. Such opportunity is far more powerful than worker's rights or easing visa restrictions to democratise the opportunity to have access to decent work to drive economic growth-both at individual and global levels.
Comparable explanations could be provided for the remaining sustainable development goals making the case that investment in creating profitable alternative through technology development and innovation is more rewarding than relying on regulatory framework to make the development sustainable, and equitable. It does not, however, mean that there is no necessity of regulation. Instead of just being obsessed with regulations and laws for controlling natural economic behaviour of human beings, we should rather take them as measures to facilitate our journey towards having technology-led innovative solutions by creating profitable possibilities.
To leverage this opportunity, developing countries should make investment in developing local innovation capacity, as many foreign technologies are not readily suitable to create profitable opportunities in the local context-particularly for the people residing at the bottom of the pyramid. In the absence of local innovation strategy, sole reliance on imported technology, mobilisation of additional funds to expand existing productive activities and imposition of regulation as promoted by different treaties run the serious risk of failing to meet the sustainable development goals.
M Rokonuzzaman Ph.D, academic, researcher and activist: Technology, Innovation and Policy, is Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North South University, Bangladesh.