Standards for Green Innovation

Abstract

Efforts to promote ‘sustainable development’ underline a need for policy integration. Applying benchmarks on ‘environmental policy integration’ (EPI) developed by Lafferty, the article illustrates the challenge with reference to Norwegian governmental initiatives to promote a national innovation policy. The case is analysed with respect to four stylized modes (standards) for promoting EPI: environmental protection, ecological modernization, ecological communalism and sustainable development. Despite a strong mandate for policy integration for sustainable development, and efforts to promote innovation within the European Union, public policy efforts in the direction of green innovation are practically non-existent in Norway. This does not necessarily mean that green innovations are not being promoted. Whatever integration effects that are being realized with respect to the four types of standards are, however, not the result of an active and goal-directed policy by the Norwegian government. The evaluation provides a differentiated platform for more specific initiatives in the area.