Abstract
This article provides a sectoral innovation system perspective of the development of energy efficient and clean process technologies in the Swedish pulp and paper industry. Specifically, the analysis elaborates the importance of knowledge development, actor networks, and institutions (including policy) for progressing and diffusing novel technologies related to energy use. The empirical analysis also sheds light on how significant changes in the sectoral innovation system have influenced the relevant research, development and demonstration activities in the Swedish pulp and paper industry over the period 1970–2010. The results are based on various sources—e.g., industry magazines, reports from industrial consultants and associations, minutes from meetings—and illustrate the importance of well-functioning innovation systems for successful technological development and diffusion processes. They display, in particular, the importance of joint, industry-wide R&D activities, trust-based state—industry relationships, government R&D expenditures, and intense information sharing. One important implication is that the role of policy stretches beyond the funding of basic R&D. Policy also involves measures that strengthen existing actor networks, build competence, and secure the existence of research institutes that provide a bridge between basic knowledge generation (at the universities) on the one hand, and industrial application on the other.
Highlights
This article addresses the question of how a transition towards radically lower energy use and zero-carbon production processes in the industrial sectors can be achieved
The Swedish pulp and paper industry case is interesting since it illustrates excellent track records in terms of energy efficiency improvements and carbon dioxide reductions, and because it involves an interesting history of industry cooperation in energy R&D, which is in turn actively supported by the state [15]
An important reason for this was that environmental protection and energy efficiency often constituted different sides of the same coin, and early on, the strategy of the Swedish pulp and paper industry involved responding to the environmental pollution challenges jointly within collaborative R&D platforms
Summary
This article addresses the question of how a transition towards radically lower energy use and zero-carbon production processes in the industrial sectors can be achieved Such a transition cannot solely build on existing, “off-the-shelf”, technologies; it requires that new technologies be developed, optimized and diffused among industrial firms [1,2]. Such a process ought in turn to build on the establishment of a network of collaborating actors, i.e., institutes, producers, equipment suppliers, and universities, as well as on policy interventions through the (co-)funding of R&D programs and pilot and demonstration plants [3,4]. The purpose of this article is to analyze the development of energy efficient and carbon-free process technologies in the Swedish pulp and paper industry over an extended period, Environments 2020, 7, 70; doi:10.3390/environments7090070 www.mdpi.com/journal/environments
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