Are cleaner production innovations the solution for small mining operations in poor regions? The case of Padua in Brazil

Mining in Santo Antônio de Pádua, a city located in the underdeveloped northeast area of the Rio de Janeiro state, in Brazil, is currently the most important economic activity in the region. Unfortunately, companies lag behind technologically and use rudimentary production methods, which cause serious environmental problems, social implications and poor competitiveness. In order to seek sustainable solutions for the Padua mining region, local support organizations have created initiatives to develop endogenous cleaner production innovations to enhance the industry's sustainability performance. During this process, some barriers for mining companies to adopt these developed technologies have emerged. This research draws on the cleaner production, sustainability and innovation literature and uses a qualitative research with multiple sources of evidence to understand the dynamics behind the Padua mining region. More specifically, this research explores how initiatives to improve the sustainability performance led by local support organizations took place, analyzes their outcomes (i.e., cleaner production innovations), and identifies some of the barriers to technology adoption. This paper offers three key research contributions. First, we claim that cleaner production approaches alone cannot create sustainable mining regions in emerging and developing countries, but they are definitively a step in the right direction since they provide the base for expanding the scope towards sustainability. Second, we argue that technology cannot be understood as the panacea for sustainability because it will never represent the complete solution for companies' sustainability problems. Third, we claim that companies can face a “managerial trap” if they pursue enhanced sustainability performance solely through the adoption of cleaner production innovations.