We had the pleasure of interviewing Jose Martinez of NOKIA recently. Jose is Head of Government Relations for Nolia in Latin America. The following summary summarizes our discussion, in which Jose provides a business perspective on sustainable development, collaboration, and where they might intersect.
“Sustainable Development” is not well defined, even among those that work in the field. What are we talking about when we say SD? For many, it is simply the implementation of social programs, which is nothing new.
Significant challenges exist in achieving sustainable development, since current work in sustainability (as we’re used to seeing it, some of which is greenwashing but even the sincere) is not really getting us anywhere in the long term. Much of it is only lip service, certainly not going to change the nature of the international investment climate/infrastructure/incentives and drivers.
Collaborative innovation – it’s a good idea generally – but very little infrastructure exists to allow for it to take place the way it should take place – the conversations need to happen among the right people in order to effect change. In government relations, we’re always trying to break down barriers & encourage investment, but you have to know who to talk to and where they are, what they do, how to get in touch with them or already know them, building relationships over long time. There are not many opportunities, ways, venues, to promote collaboration between governmental people, organizations, departments, ministers, etc. within a country either, so they don’t necessarily talk to one another and this is not helpful. In our efforts to forge these relationships, a service or collaborative environment in which we could gain new and more powerful relationships, more easily identify and connect with the key players and decision-makers in places of power, would be very valuable.
This type of dialogue could take place in many different venues. There are existing forums like OECD, UN, but there really is no place to go to have this type of collaboration per se. It’s just one-on-one, sometimes as part of associations where other members have similar interests. What’s lacking is a mechanism (i.e., a formal environment) for gov’ts and companies to talk about creating the right ecosystem for investment.
Take apple and nokia as an example. We (both) have application stores. A lot of the content for these smart phones can be developed locally (in fact, local content is attractive). That’s a potential area where you could develop a good local industry (especially in the future when content is only increasingly important). Gov’t in a lot of countires already have some of that but there’ snot a lot of collaboration in terms of identifying what governments want and matching it with what the companies want. Government lays out what funds are available for developing training and skills then company can create employment for the country. There’s opportunity here, but information is not widely available, a lot of times you don’t know who to talk to. Collaborative innovation can help here, by providing a blueprint of who in the government does what and maybe there is a liaison in government that works toward creating a better collaboration.
As an example of a situation in which innovation MIGHT happen if it were nurtured properly, Nokia has a whole product/service called Nokia Life Tools. Some are already being used in India, for example, a little application where farmers can check the market prices before pushing carts to market. Other applications in the health field, location of health services, education services. Etc. Most of these things are more as a result of company’s market research than working with governments, but companies recognize that governments also are aware of needs and there could be an opportunity for more collaboration developing solutions. The current situation is one in which NOKIA might develop a solution and present it to government, but government is not typically involved at an earlier stage of development or product design. Products could be better if we better understood local needs, and our services could also be better if governments understood (and invested in) the infrastructure that would best support those services.
Nokia needs local content for products, and government wants to create employment, so there is clearly a convergence of interests there that could be leveraged if there was a venue or forum as part of which to have these conversations more.
It just takes a long time to get acceptance for new ideas and cutting-edge technologies, so we often have to educate the government for a long time through conferences and trade associations before we have a chance to have a direct conversation. We lobby and lobby, but it’s very difficult to make progress to reach a mass audience o f influential people other than one by one and developing a network over time. If there were a way to do that, barriers would be broken down much more quickly. Other issues also exist as barriers to growth and sustainability and economic development: Tax, duty, IPR. Most governments are receptive to innovating laws and structures, incentives, etc. in order to maximize growth, but it’s very difficult to implement because first of all there are so many countries to begin with, and there’s no easy way to communicate messages broadly at a country-level or even at a regional (e.g., Latin America) level.
Putting collaborative innovation to use. It would be great if there were some type of organization that facilitated governments and private companies getting together to collaborate on new ideas and charting paths forward. It’s otherwise sometimes difficult to find opportunities to share information. Companies often lack the resources to be everywhere at one (for example, 5 people in NOKIA cover all of Latin America, and most legislators don’t know anything about technology. The general lack of understanding is so huge that no change will ever happen unless those people understand the challenges and issues we face, but also – and most importantly – the potential ways to address and fix them.
The best such venue would be a hybrid organization, something like the WEF but that is at a very high level, not getting into tactical decisions.
What NOKIA can get out of FLT’s efforts and collaboration with others? I hope that WBCSD / FLT can help provide some of the tools for how best to communicate my issues to my target audience. I don’t need a blueprint or a best practices document, but I could use a proposal as to how such collaboration as this might take place in the future. How could it be organized and facilitated?
What would also be valuable is data/information on specific countries. Identify the key players – who is doing what, what funding do they have – then NOKIA could have a database of contacts that could be accessed (potentially) and this is not otherwise easy to find.
fdi4sustainability 
Posted on 14 October, 2010 by Daniel Lieberman
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