Technological innovations and sustainable development in the Brazilian food industry: At what stage are we?

Abstract

We presently experience the challenge of sustainable development. Although there is still no consensus among executives about the role of companies in this process, some of them already include sustainability in their discourses. Thus, the aim of the present study, based on studies performed about the Brazilian food industry, was to assess, how technological innovations are being conduct in order to influence sustainability dimensions (economical, social, and environmental) and add business value. The food sector was chosen because of its great social importance, intensive use of natural resources and its economic importance in Brazilian agribusiness. The research was predominantly qualitative and made use of secondary data related to three studies on technological innovation performed by IBGE (Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics). The results demonstrate that, regarding the pillars of sustainability, the economical dimension received more attention from the innovations of the sector. It was found that the sustainable value added from technological innovations focused on environmental and social dimensions is still in an early stage and these innovations predominantly reinforce the search for business opportunities, which is still guided by an almost exclusively economic logic.