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Sociotechnical systems and sustainability: current and
future perspectives for inclusive development
Afreen Siddiqi1,2 and Ross D Collins1
Sociotechnical systems – for example, telecommunication
networks, electric grids, large-scale manufacturing systems –
are interacting ensembles of engineered artifacts embedded in
society, linked with economies, and connected with ecology.
Such systems have been analyzed through the lenses of
sustainability (largely along the dimensions of environmental
protection and affordability), carrying influence in the literatures
of technology innovation, product design, infrastructure
planning, and service delivery. Sustainability concerns along
the environmental and financial dimensions have motivated
focus on waste and emissions reduction, new technology
development, and greening of industrial ecosystems. The
concept of inclusive development, however, has not yet
permeated the research or conceptualization of sociotechnical
systems. Two streams of on-going work in inclusive innovation
and in inclusive wealth analysis offer meaningful avenues for
future connections. We discuss how the literature on
sociotechnical systems and their constituent elements of
engineered products and processes has evolved on the topic of
sustainability, how the emerging concept of inclusive
innovation bridges dimensions of environment and social
inclusivity, and how inclusive wealth may inform system-level
planning and analysis of sociotechnical systems moving
forward.
Addresses
1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
2
Harvard Kennedy School, USA
Corresponding author: Siddiqi, Afreen (siddiqi@mit.edu)
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13
This review comes from a themed issue on Sustainability science
Edited by Nicky RM Pouw and Joyeeta Gupta
Received 14 July 2016; Revised 13 January 2017;
Accepted 19 January 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2017.01.006
1877-3435/ã 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Inclusive development, with its explicit agenda for attend-
ing to the distributional aspects of societal well-being,
inclusion of un-served groups, and the internalization of
environmental impacts, is a major policy challenge for
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world leaders [1] and is the subject of this Special Issue.
Inclusive growth (that entails broad-based economic
growth across population groups and sectors and is related
to but also different from inclusive development due to its
primary focus on economic aspects) has been advocated for
almost a decade [2]. While socio-political and economic
forces have shaped disparities, technology and modern
engineered systems (typically capital intensive, large in
scale, and environmentally damaging [3]) are also consid-
ered to have contributed simultaneously to a growing
divide and uncoupling of economic growth and social
development. A variety of lenses from economics, sociol-
ogy, and development studies have been brought to bear
on the issue of increasing disparity in access to modern
technologies and industrial economies (and the consequent
differences in social opportunities and quality of life). Here,
we examine the literature on engineered sociotechnical
systems to add a distinct perspective for inclusive
development.
Sociotechnical systems (also referred to as engineering
systems) – including air transportation systems, electric
grids, telecommunication systems, water supply net-
works, and healthcare systems – underpin socio-economic
development and well-being [4]. They are ensembles of
technical artifacts embedded in society, connected with
natural ecosystems, functioning within regulatory frame-
works and markets, and exhibiting a high degree of
complexity and dynamics that are not fully understood.
Research on sociotechnical systems intersects classic
systems engineering [4,5] with technology innovation
and management, economics, and policy. A focus of this
stream of research has been on the architecture [6],
technical design and performance analysis [4,7], and is
different from the literature on sociotechnical regimes
and sociotechnical transitions [8] wherein the emphasis
has been on social complexity with questions of inquiry
mostly focused on social and institutional processes.
In the following sections, we first discuss the literature of
sociotechnical systems, specifically with regard to the
constituent elements of engineered products and pro-
cesses. We highlight past and recent literature on green
innovation stemming from concerns of environmental
sustainability. We explore the emerging concept of Inclu-
sive Innovation that aims at expanding access to and
benefits from technologies. We summarize definitions
and discuss connections of inclusive innovation to inclu-
sive growth, inclusive development, and sustainable
development. Finally, we summarize the recent literature
on Inclusive Wealth (see also Kumar, this Special Issue)
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13
8 Sustainability science
along with its prospects for shaping research on socio-
technical systems in the context of inclusive
development.
Technology innovation: from environmental
sustainability to social inclusivity
In the past two decades, a significant amount of literature
has emerged in the technology and design domains of
engineered products and processes (constituting socio-
technical systems) motivated by sustainable develop-
ment (Table 1). While the principles of sustainable
development were generally described as the integration
of economic, environmental and social dimensions [9],
the greatest thrust of research (and subsequent practice)
was on environmental impacts and affordability. Ranging
from new consumer products, materials, manufacturing
processes, modeling and assessment methods [10,11], a
variety of innovations have emerged under the paradigm
of green innovation [12,13]. Some of this was demand
driven by environmentally conscious customers, while
other developments were driven by business motivations
with the recognition that green product design and green
practices could improve profitability. Approaches such as
Lean Manufacturing and Engineering [14] – that reduced
material waste and increased efficiency – have been
advocated and adopted in industry since the 1990s.
The movement towards green processes thus had a strong
correlation and complementarity with these past practices
[15]. However, in contrast to cost reduction motivations,
the ‘green-labeled’ approaches were driven in part by
social pressures and environmental impact consider-
ations. Beyond the product and process level, research
in industrial ecology [16] drew upon concepts from natu-
ral ecosystems to focus on system-level questions of the
environmental impacts of flows of materials and energy in
industrial and consumer activities with the objective of
integrating environmental concerns into economic activ-
ities [17].
The social dimension of sustainability and concerns for
equity have been comparatively less dominant in engi-
neering literature. However, a few streams of research
Table 1
Number of publications (including journal articles and confer-
ence papers) listed in Compendex (Engineering) database with
search words ‘sustainable development’, ‘inclusive devel-
opment’, ‘inclusive growth’ in title, subject, or abstract
Year Sustainable Inclusive Inclusive
development development growth
1991 72 0 0
1995 173 0 0
2001 1067 0 0
2005 3770 0 0
2011 7707 3 9
2015 7406 10 5 and Siemens) is about redirecting innovation activities
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13
have such emphasis, most notably in inclusive design and
inclusive innovation. Inclusive design seeks to design for
the widest possible number of people (particularly the
elderly and people with disabilities). The motivation is
not just about offering equality of social opportunity, but
also about increasingly promising business catering to a
growing aging population and a wider user base of previ-
ously un-served groups [18]. The concept of inclusive
innovation emerged from the notion that mainstream
innovation had produced goods, services, and processes
traditionally aimed for middle and high-income consu-
mers and formal producers [19], and that most of the
technological advances catered to the rich [20]. In contrast
to inclusive design (that seeks to cater to groups with
limitations on physical and cognitive abilities), inclusive
innovation aims for distributional access of technologies
for the socio-economically disadvantaged.
Proponents of inclusive innovation observe that formal
scientific, technological and productive structures and
organizations have rarely produced innovations that
address the needs of the poor [20], and innovations at
times reinforce inequalities. Inequality here refers to
unequal distribution of anything people value, which is
not just wealth, but also health outcomes, educational
experiences and so on. For instance, when product design
is aimed at particular income groups, for example, drug
development for relatively rare-diseases in high-income
countries as compared to drug development for diseases
prevalent in low-income nations [21].
While innovation may at times contribute to inequalities,
it can also help overcome them [21]. Inclusive innovation
– of products and processes along with the inclusion of
roles of poor as both producers and consumers – seeks to
play an important role in overcoming exclusion [3] and
creating opportunities to improve the wellbeing of dis-
enfranchised individuals and communities trapped in
poverty [22]. Inclusive innovation (noting that while
some inequalities cannot be completely eliminated, they
should be narrowing rather than widening [21]) has
increasingly gained scholarly attention [23]. With growing
momentum, it will likely inform policy and development-
based practice in the Post-2015 development agenda
[19].
Linked with inclusive innovation are concepts of grass-
roots innovation, reverse innovation, and frugal innova-
tion discussed in development studies and business lit-
erature, but less so in engineering literature to date.
Grassroots innovations are bottom-up, community-level
innovation solutions responding to local needs, interests,
and values [24]. The notion of reverse innovation
(employed by several multinational corporations includ-
ing GE, Proctor and Gamble, Unilever, Nestles, Philips,
from high-income to low-income markets to that of
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 Sociotechnical systems and inclusive development Siddiqi and Collins 9
innovating from low-income to high-income markets
[25,26]. It has grown in a number of sectors such as
mobile telecommunications, medical imaging, and the
agricultural sector [22,26,27]. Frugal innovation seeks to
significantly reduce the use of financial and natural
resources for innovations. Examples include the Tata
Nano (a $2500 car developed in India), the Sakshat $35
web notebook, the Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital, Discov-
ery Health, Ushahidi and new business models in such
activities as microfinance, rural electrification, crowd-
sourcing through mobile telephony, and health insurance
[22]. Frugal and reverse innovation are strongly related to
issues of environment [26] due to the emphasis on reduc-
ing material and resource use. However, a smaller envi-
ronmental footprint is not always inherent in these inno-
vations if production processes, recycling, and other
elements are not explicitly designed for minimizing
environmental impacts [28].
These approaches for innovation (with a specific focus on
including the poor and un-served communities) are well
poised for bridging the sustainable development litera-
ture within the technology and engineering domains to
the emerging concept of inclusive development. Inclu-
sive development is a constituent part of sustainable
development with emphasis on social and environmental
dimensions [29]. Inclusive innovation and its connected
concepts can form a foundation for research on socio-
technical systems and inclusive development through a
focus on engineered product and processes that contrib-
ute to societal well-being, equitable access, and environ-
mental protection.
Inclusive development and socio-technical
systems
A review of publications in engineering literature data-
bases suggests that the concept of inclusive development
is in nascent stages. Table 1 shows the number of pub-
lications in the Compendex database [30] with the words
‘sustainable development’, ‘inclusive development’, and
‘inclusive growth’ appearing in the title, subject, or
abstract. The Compendex database focuses on engineer-
ing and technology journals and sources, thus a search
within its repository provides a proxy indicator of the level
of attention being directed to these topics in the engi-
neering domain. The number of publications shows that
while motivations of ‘sustainable development’ are firmly
established, notions of ‘inclusive development’ have yet
to permeate the literature in the engineering and tech-
nology areas. Table 2 shows a comparison with the
number of publications counted from a search in the
Scopus database for social sciences and humanities titles.
Because of differences in the number of researchers and
the rate of publications in different fields, a simple direct
comparison of the total number of publications across the
engineering and social sciences areas is not appropriate.
However, if the relative publication count of inclusive
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Table 2
Number of publications (including journal articles, conference
papers, book chapters) listed in Scopus (Social Sciences
and Humanities) database with search words ‘sustainable
development’, ‘inclusive development’, ‘inclusive growth’ in title,
subject, or abstract
Year Sustainable Inclusive Inclusive
development development growth
1991 118 0 0
1995 274 0 0
2001 535 3 0
2005 1234 4 0
2011 3232 17 37
2015 4500 40 69
development to sustainable development publications is
considered (for publication year 2015), it is 10/7406 for
engineering and 40/4500 for humanities and social
sciences. This provides a crude but useful (and not
surprising) indication that humanities and social science
literature has led the discussion and research on these
topics.
As the research momentum on inclusive development
grows, it is likely that more visibility will also emerge in
the sociotechnical systems realm. In particular, with the
increasing research focus of inclusivity on technology
innovation, questions of impact of such innovations on
emergent behavior and functions of sociotechnical sys-
tems are likely to follow. A number of new technologies
for improving productivity in key sectors such as agricul-
ture, the nutritional content in staple crops [31], as well as
solutions for affordable and equitable access to clean
energy [32], water and sanitation, affordable housing
construction and communication [33,34] are being inves-
tigated with inclusive development as a motivating factor.
Thus, just as sustainability put a normative demand on
product innovation to become more environmentally
benign [9], the emerging interest in inclusive develop-
ment may spur increasing demand for social inclusivity in
technology innovation and by extension—development
of sociotechnical systems.
Moving beyond the innovation and technology level,
engineering infrastructure (that targets and delivers ben-
efits to under-served areas and communities) is important
for inclusive development [35]. Research and develop-
ment of methods that can improve analysis of the distri-
butional aspects of value delivery and benefits across the
stakeholders of the systems will be key for advancing
work in this arena. This will be particularly important for
infrastructure systems that provide services such as water,
energy, and public transportation and are key contributors
for development. Additionally, new metrics and tools
for evaluating sociotechnical systems for inclusivity will
be required. The issue of scale of analysis is often
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13
10 Sustainability science

challenging for decision makers and planners for assess-
ment of system impacts and valuation. Many planning,
evaluation, and optimization models account for aggre-
gate, net benefits at national, state, or other larger scales,
but these approaches can hide important variations at
smaller scales. Approaches that allow for considering
cross-scale issues (at community level as well as state
level) will be needed to better analyze value delivery and
the performance of technology selection and system
design.
Sociotechnical systems and inclusive wealth
A promising avenue that can link inclusive development
and sociotechnical systems research is emerging work
on Inclusive Wealth (Figure 1). It provides a potential
framework for analyzing the effect of sociotechnical
systems – including technology or policy interventions
to these systems – on inclusive development.
Inclusive wealth is the social value of the capital asset
stocks in a society. The assets are, in principle, compre-
hensive, including all stocks on which society draws to
build its well-being, including produced capital (buildings,
machinery, equipment), human capital (health, education,
skills), natural capital (forests, fisheries, minerals, fossil
fuels), social capital (institutions, norms, culture), and
knowledge capital (scientific discovery, access to informa-
tion) [36]. The link to well-being requires that the assets
be valued at social (also called shadow) prices that capture
all externalities. The theory states that if inclusive wealth
per capita does not decline, development is on a sustain-
able trajectory. However, inclusive wealth theory has
yet to explicitly incorporate concepts from inclusive
development in its propositions. The foundations of
inclusive wealth lie in a substantial literature from eco-
nomics [36–38], with recent reviews by Dasgupta [39] and
Polasky et al. [40]. There have also been numerous
empirical attempts at quantifying changes to inclusive
wealth [41–43,44,45] (see also Kumar, this Special Issue).
A major gap in the inclusive wealth literature is its use in
technology or policy evaluation. This is partly a modeling
challenge (i.e., figuring out how to model the intercon-
nected dynamics of these assets over time), but it is also a
valuation challenge (i.e., figuring out which assets are
important to measure and how to quantify them). While
some have offered theoretical guidance in conducting
policy evaluation with inclusive wealth [46,47], practical
evaluations of real-world decisions remain rare. This gap
presents an opportunity for the field of sociotechnical
systems, and engineering/infrastructure planning more
broadly, since changes to such systems can result in
significant and cascading impacts to the assets that com-
prise the productive base of a society. For example,
Collins [48] and Collins et al. [49] evaluate the impact
of different non-fossil electric power systems on produced
and human capital accumulation in oil-exporting coun-
tries. While the work illustrated differential develop-
mental impacts across countries, it did not explore the
distributional inclusive wealth impacts within countries
(e.g., increases/decreases to wealth across income groups).
Analyses of distributional inclusive wealth impacts
resulting from sociotechnical system changes represent
a substantial body of future work.

Overall, inclusive wealth is a promising framework for

Figure 1 linking large-scale engineering planning and design to
inclusive development. However, there remains signifi-
cant theory-building work to explicitly connect the
Society
ita l Soc
ial
economics-driven inclusive wealth literature with the
ap Ca
n C pita multi-disciplinary inclusive development literature, and
ma l
Hu there are many more case studies (across other systems,
scales, regions) yet to be conducted.
Innovation
Inclusive

Innovation, growth, and development: an

Engineered Elements
integrated perspective
Technologies In Table 3 we summarize definitions that clarify and also
Products differentiate the concepts of inclusive wealth, develop-
Kno apital

Infrastructure
ment, growth and innovation as discussed in this paper.
C
wle

G
ive Inn ree
lus th
dge

c ov n
I row
n ati Sociotechnical systems (that include engineered ele-
l
ita

on
G
ap

ments from technologies to large scale infrastructure)

lC
ra

Ma Economy Environment span the dimensions of society, economy and environ-

tu

nu
Na

f
Ca actur ment. Inclusive innovation – with emphasis on societal
pit ed
al and environmental dimensions – can create products,
Inclusive wealth
processes, and systems that beneficially impact the liveli-
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
hoods and well-being of the poor (and the wider society)
and ensure environmental protection. This would contrib-
Engineered systems, inclusive development, and inclusive wealth. ute to inclusive growth (as previously un-served groups

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13 www.sciencedirect.com

 Sociotechnical systems and inclusive development Siddiqi and Collins 11
Table 3
Definitions of inclusive wealth, development, growth and innovation
Definition
Sustainable development
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It implies concern for
social equity between and across generations, requires meeting the basic
needs of all, and extends to all the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations
for a better life [50]
Inclusive wealth
Aggregate social value of all capital assets, where the value of a unit of a
capital asset is measured by the contribution it makes to increase current
and future human well-being. It is a measure designed to address whether
development has been or will be sustainable [40]
Inclusive development
Development that is distributed across people and sectors along multiple
dimensions of societal well-being [35]. It includes marginalized people,
sectors and countries in social, political and economic processes for
increased human well-being, social and environmental sustainability, and
empowerment [29]
Inclusive growth
Output growth that is broad-based across economic sectors, creates
productive employment opportunities, and reduces poverty. It recognizes
that broad-based progress in living standards, rather than economic
growth per se, should be the bottom-line measure of national economic
performance [1]
Inclusive innovation
A type of innovation that is inclusive in terms of the process by which it is
achieved and inclusive in terms of the problems and the solutions it is
related to [52]. Inclusive innovation produces new goods and services for
those on lowest incomes [23,53]
of society may derive new benefits and opportunities
leading to economic gain), as well as to the inclusive
development process with an increase in inclusive wealth
(at least within the categories of social capital, human
capital, and natural capital) thus contributing to sustainable
development.
Figure 1 summarizes some of the concepts with a sche-
matic that partly draws from the representations of sus-
tainable development [29,54] as a triad of society,
economy, and environment. In this figure, the central
component of technology (engineered systems) spans all
three dimensions. Green innovation connects technolo-
gies with environment (but are also in the space of
economy as several are created with profitability motiva-
tions). Inclusive innovation connects technology to the
societal and environmental space (but with greater focus
on the societal dimension), and inclusive growth connects
with economy and society. The circle represents inclusive
wealth that bridges the triad and consists of different
types of capital that broadly touch upon different combi-
nations of society, economy, and environment dimen-
sions. For instance, manufactured capital is linked with
economy and environment, as natural resources are
needed for material production.
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Dimensions
Economy, environment and society
Types of capital assets include: natural capital, manufactured
capital, human capital, and social capital [40]. In some cases,
knowledge capital [51] and human health are included as separate
categories [40]
Society and environment
Economy and society
Seven pillars have been defined: education and skills development;
employment and labor compensation; asset building and
entrepreneurship; financial intermediation of real economy
investment; corruption and rents; basic service and infrastructure;
fiscal transfers [1]
Inclusivity dimensions: problems to be addressed, the
development process of innovative goods and services, the
adoption of innovations, and impacts (through effects on
livelihoods) [53]
Conclusions
Sociotechnical systems are physical manifestations of the
processes of development, resulting from investment of
capital, use of technical knowledge, application of human
expertise and labor, and operation of governing institu-
tions. The actors, institutions, organizations, and
resources shape who reaps the benefits, and who bears
the costs and risks of these systems. The principles of
inclusive development – formulated through research
[2,54,55] and enacted through policy – will impact
how engineered systems are built and operated, and
how the societal benefits are ultimately distributed.
The discussion on inclusive development has mostly
been in development studies, sociology and political
economies discourses. Here we have explored the engi-
neering literature of sociotechnical systems to provide a
distinct perspective.
The concept of sustainable development (that preceded
and partly spawned the concept of inclusive develop-
ment) gained wide adoption in the technical realm. The
focus, however, has mostly been on environmental and
economic aspects and less so on social inclusion and
distributional aspects. The notion of inclusive innovation,
emerging in humanities and social sciences literature, will
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017, 24:7–13
12 Sustainability science
likely provide a path from sustainable development to
inclusive development in the smaller scale technology
innovation literature. Furthermore, for research on macro-
level systems analysis and infrastructure planning and
design, inclusive wealth evaluation frameworks offer a
promising avenue of linkage between inclusive develop-
ment and sociotechnical systems.
Acknowledgements
This contribution has been written in response to the call by the European
Association of Development Institute’s Working Group on Inclusive
Development. The authors are grateful for feedback from two reviewers
and the editors of this special issue.
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 Sociotechnical systems and inclusive development Siddiqi and Collins 13
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