Towards Environmental Innovation — A Policy Synthesis

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The papers in this book seek to bring together two research communities; namely, those who write from the "innovation systems" perspective, looking at the patterns and dynamics of technological innovation within different national and international contexts and those who are engaged in the specific study of "environmental innovation", looking at the processes whereby new products and processes can be developed which take account of ecological impacts and resource usage. The aim of the book is to see whether new insights could be gained regarding appropriate policies for better environmental innovation and what the possibilities and limitations for policy are when the two perspectives collide and combine. Studies of environmental innovation over the last ten years have concentrated on a few key issues. Firstly, they have been interested in investigating what stimulates companies to come up with 'green(er)' innovations in either the products they sell or the processes they use to make or distribute them. The main focus has been on whether government-imposed regulations have been and should continue to be a main stimulus for such innovations. The answer has been clear regulation is the most important stimulus to innovation, though other factors are also influential in some circumstances, such as changes in market demand, effects of supply chain pressures (which is a form of inter-organisational demand change) and culture change within the innovating organisation or the campaigning of NGOs. There has also been much work on the institutional contexts of pollution abatement, the adoption of clean(er) technologies and the redesign of products to incorporate materials with less ecological impact. More recently, focus has begun to move towards thinking about innovation for sustainability, rather than just for the more limited aims of reduction of ecological impact of existing products and processes. If this new direction is to come up with some new policy insights, it should be able to benefit from recent work on innovation systems, which sees innovation as part of broader socio-economic processes.