Addressing Sustainable Social Change for All: Upcycled-Based Social Creative Businesses for the Transformation of Socio-Technical Regimes

Abstract

The global challenges caused by socio-economic inequalities, climate change and environmental damage caused to ecosystems, require changes in human behavior at all organizational levels, including companies, governments, communities, and individuals. In this context, it is important to analyse how social and creative companies that work in the fashion and industrial design recycling sector can address sustainable social change. In this paper, we propose an analysis in the countries of the global South. To learn how grassroots innovations can contribute to the development of sustainable strategies, we perform the framework of Technical transitions. We analyze the three main areas of activity that constitute an effective niche construction: social networks, expectations and visions, and learning. A qualitative methodology is used, a video case study with six grassroots organizations in South Africa, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Brazil. The results reflect the important role played by these grassroots innovations, contributing to the development of social and creative recycling companies that address socio-economic and environmental problems.

Controlling social problems and environmental changes through sustainability: Evidence from Indonesian beverage companies

“…The issue of sustainability has become a very interesting topic and has often been discussed globally in the last five years (Ali & Kaur, 2021;Atkins, Atkins, Thomson, & Maroun, 2015;Boons, Montalvo, Quist, & Wagner, 2013;Calvo et al, 2020;Hannibal & Kauppi, 2019;Minutolo, Ivanova, & Cong, 2021;Ngu & Amran, 2019;Park et al, 2020). This happens because of the issue of scarcity of natural resources (De Sinay, De Araujo, Sinay, & Dalbem, 2016;Issa & Al Abbar, 2015) and environmental destruction that affects many aspects of life, including business continuity (Chand, Kumar, Thakkar, & Ghosh, 2022;Le, Huan, Hong, & Tran, 2021;Păunescu, Popescu, & Blid, 2018;Swain & Brahimi, 2022).…”

Exploring what motivates the development of upcycling practices.

“…Given the above, the need arises to explore different approaches to extend the useful life of products and reduce waste generation (Bell et al, 2019;Calvo et al, 2020;Charter & Keiller, 2014). Along these lines, the concept of upcycling arises, which is defined as the reuse (of discarded objects or materials) in such a way that a product of higher quality or value than the original is created (Oxford dictionary, 2019).…”