In the dynamic landscape of modern markets, innovation often thrives at the crossroads of necessity and competition. Companies are compelled to innovate to stay ahead, whether it’s in creating novel products, streamlining processes, or redefining customer experience. Yet, the pursuit of innovation, while pivotal, is not always sustainable. The relentless quest for ‘more’ – more features, more speed, more growth – can lead to an inefficient use of natural resources, accelerating the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

This raises a fundamental question: how do we work to ensure that innovation creates value for the company and its customers, while positively contributing to a sustainable and fair use of natural resources? The answer may lie in the concept of sufficiency and its application to business innovation.

The latest IPCC Report defines sufficiency as “policy measures and daily practices that avoid the demand for energy, materials, water, and land, while providing wellbeing for all within planetary boundaries”. So far, sufficiency has primarily received attention as a strategy for climate mitigation (policy level) and sustainable consumption (individual level), while its relevance and potential impact on businesses has not yet been fully explored.

Traditionally, businesses have thrived on ever-increasing demand as a catalyst for growth, so sufficiency and business might be perceived as inherently contradictory or antagonistic concepts. This perception, however, is far from accurate. Sufficiency holds the potential to become a driver for innovation while reshaping businesses’ societal role and purpose. In doing so, it can enable new design ideas, drive improved customer relations, access new markets and foster long-term resilience.

To explore how sufficiency could fuel innovation within businesses, let’s start by looking at three key elements embedded in its definition:

1. Avoid demand for energy, materials, water, and land: This calls for a strategic emphasis on dematerialisation, prompting a reduction in the demand for natural resources;
2. Providing wellbeing for all: Sufficiency mandates the fulfilment of the needs of all human beings, advocating for a more inclusive and holistic approach;
3. Within planetary boundaries: An integral dimension of strong sustainability, this element underscores the imperative of aligning actions with the finite capacities of our planet.

Starting from these three components, sufficiency prompts a revaluation of challenges and required solutions. Instead of elaborate, resource-intensive solutions, sufficiency encourages businesses to find innovative, leaner and more sustainable alternatives. This mindset may spark creativity, leading to services and products that prioritise sustainability and durability. As a result, sufficiency-led innovation can drive transformative business changes, particularly in three key areas.

Sufficiency’s principle of satisfying human needs while reducing the demand for resources enables a profound revaluation of product and service design. This paradigm shift pushes businesses to focus on the need to be satisfied, rather than on the product itself. This redirection encourages a systems thinking approach, allowing businesses to explore innovative solutions to meet human needs effectively.

This shift in mindset from product-centric to need-centric not only aligns with the principles of sufficiency but also opens the door to creative problem-solving and ground-breaking innovations in product and service design. Moreover, this may facilitate the uptake of innovative product-as-a-service systems, where businesses can innovate by offering services that fulfil needs, rather than promoting the disposal of goods and creating ever more waste.

Sufficiency encourages a deep understanding of customer needs. Instead of perpetuating an environment of ever-growing consumption, sufficiency encourages businesses to establish deeper connections with customers, identifying their genuine needs and values. Innovation becomes about offering products and services that truly matter to customers, not just filling the market with more noise.

Rethinking customer relations through sufficiency opens a gateway to improved communication and a deeper connection with consumers. It’s an opportunity to not just sell products or services, but to inform and educate customers about the environmental impact of their consumption choices. In turn, this may enable customers to establish a deeper connection with what they consume and better maintain, repair and care for products. The transparency and educational approach can foster trust and loyalty, as consumers increasingly value companies that prioritise sustainability.

There is still a huge portion of people globally whose needs are not being met. According to the World Bank, over 3 billion people live on less than $6.85 a day, representing a vast consumer base and business opportunity. Currently, low-income markets, due to their price sensitivity, often find themselves serviced by companies that prioritise affordability over sustainability. The cost-focused nature of these markets leads to the dominance of products and practices that are often the least sustainable—both environmentally and socially—with shorter lifespans, higher resource consumption, and lower quality.

However, sufficiency-driven business models challenge this paradigm, aiming to show that affordability and sustainability must not be mutually exclusive. By introducing innovations that prioritise resource efficiency, durability, and environmental responsibility, businesses may shift the focus from short-term affordability to long-term value. This approach isn’t just about selling more; it’s about addressing a significant segment of the population that has a huge potential to contribute to a company’s growth while simultaneously elevating their quality of life.

Sufficiency emphasises the responsibility of businesses to not only meet human needs but to do so responsibly within the planet’s ecological limits. It challenges the traditional notion of growth at all costs, urging businesses to consider their impact on society and the environment. Shifting the focus from fulfilling wants to meeting essential needs marks a transformative pivot in the innovation landscape for companies.

While resetting its role in society, sufficiency-led businesses might also become more resilient to market fluctuations and unexpected changes. By innovating and becoming more mindful of resource usage, in fact, businesses become more adaptable and potentially more resilient to sudden shifts in resource availability, economic downturns and changing customer preferences.

Opening the business doors to sufficiency, therefore, can be a valuable strategy for long-term value creation, that goes beyond a quick spike in sales. Integrating sufficiency into their business models, companies can drive a different kind of innovation – one that’s rooted in balance, sustainability and a unique value proposition.

WRF is an international non-profit organisation empowering collaboration to promote sustainability and fairness in the global use of natural resources. Through multi-stakeholder conferences, projects and publications, it strives to scale up knowledge and practical solutions able to make resource use a force for human wellbeing within planetary countries. WRF is located in St. Gallen, Switzerland and has a strong track-record of project implementation in Africa and Latin America.

The topic of sufficiency was featured as one of the three main conference tracks at the last World Resources Forum 2023 Conference (Geneva, 4-6 September, 2023).