Welcome to Issue 22. It’s been a minute or two, but we are back we and trying something a bit different. So rather than blog length issues, we are going for shorter reads. We'll be covering the stories that are sparking ideas for us as well as some we might not necessarily agree with but got us thinking differently. Enjoy and let us know what you think.

So, we recently read in New Scientist that Arizona State University asked undergrads to build tools using the principles of frugal science. One team built a robot which as you can see is made almost entirely from Lego. Turns out it’s not only faster than existing tech but it’s also about the tenth of the cost of commercial devices.

Source: New Scientist, The Lego robot, Sentosa et al., 2023, PLoS ONE

This got us wondering whether frugality had ever been applied to innovation. And it turns out it has.

Frugal or jugaad innovation (a Hindi term that translates to ‘an innovative fix’) involves repurposing existing materials, leveraging open-source technologies and collaborating with local communities. Rajou and Prabhu, 2015 summed it up as the ability to do more with less i.e. create more business and social value while minimising the use of diminishing resources such as energy, capital and time. This is frankly refreshing and in stark contrast to the orthodox mindset which rewards individualistic and resource-heavy practices and inflexible, non-localised and non-customised supply chains.

The frugal approach has yielded some great results, especially (and unsurprisingly) in emerging markets. We had already come across ideas like solar bottle bulbs (plastic bottles filled with water and bleach, installed in roofs to refract light into rooms without the need for electricity), SODIS (solar water disinfection) and the Aravind Eye Care System (revolutionising eye care by employing assembly line techniques) but had never realised they were the result of a common methodology.

In the Global North, the focus of most frugal innovation has been almost exclusively on creating low-cost attributes and as a result, has become a byword for bottom of the pyramid solutions. This feels like a massive miss.
COVID-19 created a disruption event unparalleled in peace time with many of the most successful ‘pandemic’ innovations driven by open-source knowledge, inclusivity, grassroot-driven initiatives, and emergent digital processes. In many ways jugaad was being used, we just didn't know it.

But we would like to take it one step further by adding reuse to the frugal toolkit. Far too often “fast and low cost” can lead to ideas such as individual units, disposability or small packs, with their associated environmentally negative consequences. But with thoughtful design they don’t need to.

Right now, we’re embracing jugaad and frugal innovation across many of our innovation projects, interrogating briefs for opportunities that are not only great growth solutions, but that also minimise resource consumption. We hope, for the sake of the planet, we’re not the only ones.

Issue 22: Should frugal innovation become the next big thing?