From Frugal Innovation to Frugal Economy: The Next Frontier
In 2015 my book Frugal Innovation, coauthored with Jaideep Prabhu, was published by The Economist andProfile Books.
Ten years later, in 2025, I intend to promote globally my new book The Frugal Economy, published by Wiley and Thinkers50.
What are the key differences between these two books ?
Rather than talk about differences, it’s best to talk about SYNERGIES among these two books.
Our book Frugal innovation was the 1st book that showed how WESTERN firms in Europe and America can develop affordable and sustainable products to meet the needs of Western consumers who’ve become value — and values — conscious.
This was a practical *guide* book that offered 6 core principles that Western businesses can adopt to “do better with less” in US/European markets.
Frugal Innovation was focused on MICROECONOMICS — improving the the inner-workings (strategy, processes, leadership) of *individual* businesses.
My new book The Frugal Economy takes frugality to the next level.
It shows how we can reinvent entire resource-intensive industry value chains and our dysfunctional economic systems that exclude people and deplete the planet so they can become socially inclusive and ecologically regenerative.
My new book doesn’t aim to reinvent NATIONAL economies (I leave that to Donald Trump!), but rather reinvigorate REGIONAL economies so they can boost the health and vitality of local people and biodiversity.
As such, The Frugal Economy is focused on MESOECONOMICS.
Mesoeconomics is an exciting new academic field that studies economic arrangements that fall between microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Mesoeconomics focuses on relationships between firms, supply chains, and regional innovation ecosystems.
Read Bill Janeway’s excellent Project Syndicate article “The Rise of Mesoeconomics”
Bill set up The Janeway Institute for Economics at University of Cambridge to study the promising new field of Mesoeconomics.
Now coming back to my new book.
The Frugal Economy is built on 4 core pillars that you can learn about by reading my Sustainable Brands (SB) articles on all of them:
- B2B Sharing Economy: https://tinyurl.com/m9dy67v4
- Distributed Manufacturing: https://tinyurl.com/m34zxkw7
- Hyper-Local Value Networks: https://tinyurl.com/rjvt3wrv
- Triple Regeneration: https://tinyurl.com/2p9smdk
Read also my SB article on how American counties & cities can build frugal economies at local level (this article shows how Mesoeconomics works).
This year, I will be carrying the Frugal Economy torch around the world to lit up with hope nations in Global North and Global South.
The French edition of The Frugal Economy will be published by Pearson in May 2025.
In June 2025, I will discuss the Frugal Economy at various conferences such as IAMOT 2025 in Quebec, #Canada.
This summer, I will launch The Frugal Economy at a major tech & innovation conference in South America.
Stay tuned for more info…
