Why Climate Innovations Fail To Scale: Understanding the barriers between breakthrough and impact

Innovation is widely recognized as essential for achieving climate mitigation and adaptation goals. The Oslo Manual (OECD and Eurostat 2018) defines innovation “as a new or improved product or process, or combination thereof, that differs significantly from a unit's previous products or processes and has either been made available to potential users or brought into use.” Central to this definition is the role of knowledge as the basis for novelty and utility, and value creation or preservation as the presumed goal of innovation - extending beyond invention to encompass humanitarian, social, and institutional dimensions(Kochetkov 2023). The reality however, is that a persistent and costly gap exists between what is technically possible and what is successfully adopted. Despite remarkable advances in precision agriculture, remote sensing, and AI-driven climate tools, adoption rates of climate-smart innovations remain stubbornly low.

Cecilia Mwende

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