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Changing Patterns in Eco-Innovation Research: A Bibliometric Analysis
Abstract
In this chapter we analyze patterns in the nature of eco-innovation research. For this, we conducted different types of bibliometric analyses on Web of Science Core Collection data. The analysis reveals that eco-innovation is examined from different perspectives. These are (1) supply-side perspectives focusing on firms and industries (e.g. drivers for and barriers to eco-innovation); (2) technology-centered research (e.g. carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles, smart plugs); (3) science-based research (e.g. new materials); (4) sectoral studies (e.g. steel and iron industry, transport, information technology, food, agriculture, tourism); (5) the knowledge support element in eco-innovation (e.g. skills and training); (6) demand-side analyses (e.g. diffusion and adoption dynamics of individuals, households, firms), and (7) a policy influence perspective (the impact of policy instruments e.g. eco-labels, policy mixes). Concept-wise, we observe that the concepts of industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis, and circular economy are gaining importance as analytical lenses. Our analysis reveals differences between “eco-innovation” and “environmental innovation” research in that the latter pays more attention to policy influences and is less consumption-oriented. We also identified a shift from analysing the impact towards supply and demand side research, a shift from environmental innovations to the generative processes and dilemmas for sustainability-oriented innovations, and a rise in publications from less developed parts of the world.
... According to Hojnik and Ruzzier [37] eco-innovations can be viewed in three dimensions: technological, organisational or institutional. Based on the bibliometric analyses from the Web of Science Core Collection data, Türkeli and Kemp [38] examined more comprehensive perspectives on eco-innovation. These were (1) supply-side perspectives focusing on companies and industries (e.g., drivers and barriers to eco-innovation); (2) technology-focused research (e.g., carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles, smart plugs); (3) academic research (e.g., new materials); (4) sectoral research (e.g., metallurgy and ironmaking, transport, information technology, food, agriculture, tourism); (5) knowledge support component of eco-innovation (e.g., skills and training); (6) demandside analysis (e.g., diffusion and adoption dynamics of individuals, households, firms); and (7) policy impact perspective (impact of policy instruments, e.g., ecolabels, policy mixes). ...
... These were (1) supply-side perspectives focusing on companies and industries (e.g., drivers and barriers to eco-innovation); (2) technology-focused research (e.g., carbon capture and storage, electric vehicles, smart plugs); (3) academic research (e.g., new materials); (4) sectoral research (e.g., metallurgy and ironmaking, transport, information technology, food, agriculture, tourism); (5) knowledge support component of eco-innovation (e.g., skills and training); (6) demandside analysis (e.g., diffusion and adoption dynamics of individuals, households, firms); and (7) policy impact perspective (impact of policy instruments, e.g., ecolabels, policy mixes). Türkeli and Kemp [38] considered eco-innovation as entirely new or modified products, processes, techniques or systems that avoid or reduce environmental damage but retain the same use value. ...
The concept of eco-innovation addresses a reduction in negative environmental impacts and the more efficient use of resources. As an integral part of eco-innovation, green technologies are receiving increasing attention due to growing environmental concerns. Patent data are one of the measures of the output of technological eco-innovation. However, understanding the patenting of eco-innovation comes with challenges. The aim of this study is to measure the output of eco-innovation and to analyse the trends in green technologies based on environment-related patents in the world’s leading countries from 2000 to 2017. For this research, a range of data collection techniques based on patent data from leading countries such as China, Korea, Japan, United States and Germany were employed. The study provides a comprehensive overview of changes and trends in the development of environmental technologies using different domains. In particular, significant progress has been made in the areas of environmental technologies and climate change mitigation technologies related to energy generation, transmission or distribution. These technologies are closely linked to international environmental policies such as climate change mitigation and green industry transformation. The study also contributes to the literature on measuring the output of eco-innovation.
... Moreover, Díaz-García et al. (2015) observed that there is a clear increase in the relevance of this issue within academia and several thematic trends arise in eco-innovation research, with drivers of eco-innovation being the most popular. Although various publications reviewing the eco-innovation research field have been published in recent years, the papers carrying out a bibliometric analysis in this area still rarely occur in the literature (Albort-Morant et al., 2017;Turkeli and Kemp, 2018). In addition, they focus on general results which undoubtedly requires expansion and updating due to the substantial dynamism of publication activity. ...
This paper presents the results of a comprehensive bibliometric analysis aiming to describe and evaluate the management perspective of eco-innovation research. The analysis was based on the Web of Science Core Collection database. The VOSviewer software tool was selected to visualize the scientific landscape and determine diverse networks in the analyzed field. Using quantity and quality indicators, the descriptive bibliometric analysis enabled identification of the most prolific authors, sources, organizations and countries in the literature. Moreover, network analyses were performed to visualize and assess the level of multi-faceted scientific collaboration. This made it possible to determine the most influential research channels and impact from sources, countries and research topics, as well as major clusters of publications covering the management perspective of eco-innovation research.
... Unstructured textual information in the title, abstract, and acknowledgements can be used to identify publications related to the environment, energy efficiency, resource efficiency, energy productivity, material productivity, eco-innovation, etc. Barbieri et al. (2016) used the scientific literature on eco-innovation to identify the main topics of research and knowledge trajectories. Scientific publications can capture knowledge diversification across a variety of research fields (Kwon et al., 2016;Türkeli et al., 2018a, Türkeli andKemp, 2018b) and data on the affiliation of authors can measure collaboration between science and industry. Citations are of value for assessing knowledge flows across countries and regions. ...
The Maastricht Manual on Measuring Eco-innovation offers guidance on the measurement of eco-innovation in order to provide high quality data for research and policies to support the green economy.
The Maastricht Manual has been designed for researchers, policy makers and statisticians from National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and other organisations responsible for collecting and producing indicators.
Policy makers can use the Maastricht Manual to identify the types of data that are required to inform policy and consequently to demand and fund the collection of relevant, high quality indicators on eco-innovation.
The Maastricht Manual has been written by leading scholars in the fields of innovation for sustainable development - some of them having led the process of revision of the latest version of the OECD Oslo Manual for the Measurement of Innovation.
In this article, we analyse the evolution of circular economy (CE) scientific knowledge in the most productive political geographies in the field, namely the European Union (EU) 28 and China by using bibliometric, network and survey analysis. Our objective is to provide a systemic, quantitative, visio-temporal review of the evolution of the CE scientific research field. Using Web of Science (WoS) database and Scopus, we trace the bibliometric characteristics of key research terms, their co-occurrences, publication (co)authorships at multi-level (author, institute, city, region, country), issue journals, literature citations and funding sources. Our findings from co-authorship, citation, co-citation, bibliometric coupling, co-occurrence and network analyses indicate that China and the EU have the highest amount of CE literature published and are each other's primary source of co-authorship. Emerging or reiterated main themes in the joint CE literature between EU and China are emergy analysis, indicators; resource efficiency, food waste, zero waste; eco-cities, lifestyle and governance. There appears a good potential for international cooperation in the sectoral fields of automotive, construction and demolition, critical raw materials; in business, (new) business models, product and services platforms, and from security perspective, resource security, security of supply, given the paucity of co-authorship between China and the EU under these themes. In China; Beijing, Shenyang, Dalian, Shanghai are the most active cities with a central role of Chinese Academy of Sciences at institution level of analysis. The most active EU institute is the Delft University of Technology in South Holland, the Netherlands. In Europe, we observe countries citing CE literature yet with no or few publications. Journal of Cleaner Production is the most important outlet for publications on CE and also for joint publications of CE researchers in both China and EU-28. We conclude our article with future research agendas, and a positive note on existing interests in international cooperation based on our survey participated by highly-cited CE authors.
Studies on the effects of research and innovation in agriculture have been largely characterised by efforts to make a connection between expenditure and productivity. A number of issues have challenged the ability of productivity to measure the effects of research, namely, in recent years, increasing efforts towards improving the environmental performance of the farming sector. Besides environmental concerns, however, a number of recent concepts have emerged that are shaping the current research and policy agenda and which could result in a revision of the productivity concepts used to evaluate research impacts. The objective of this paper is to discuss these issues and their implications for studies on the impact of research and innovation. We address, in particular, the following issues: a) the development of the of bioeconomy and related concepts such as the circular economy, resource efficiency and bio-refinery; b) the connection with entrepreneurship and eco-innovation; c) changing tools in research assessment, in particular the widespread use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA); and d) the evolving concepts of sustainability and ecosystem services. We argue that while the traditional notion of productivity, intended as output/input ratio, maintains (and may be strengthens) its role on the aggregate, a more analytical interpretation of the pathways towards research impacts is needed, as well as a broadened view of productivity and its determinants.
This study analyzes the importance of ecolabels as an eco-innovation tool that can contribute to the sustainable design, production and consumption of products. Our research has a dual objective. The first is to build a theoretical framework that explains the relationship between ecolabels and eco-innovation, their determinants (demand, supply, and institutional and political influences) and the dimensions that arise from them. Second, according to this framework, a systematic literature review was carried out to identify the trends and opportunities in ecolabeling as a multidimensional topic, from empirical, geographical and sectorial perspective. The main contributions of this paper are a proposal for cyclical ecolabeling innovation process, an understanding of the ecolabeling dimensions according to the studies analyzed, and ecolabel performance in the market. Additionally, the systematic literature review revealed that ecolabels have been mainly explored in food sectors and, developed countries, and researchers tend to assess their performance from the dimension of market dynamics.
Despite the very positive – as measured by market surveys – attitude towards eco-innovations and sustainability in general, the actual market penetration of green products and practices generally falls behind the expectations. In this paper we argue that considering difficulty of engagement, as used in the Campbell Paradigm, is of critical importance when modeling diffusion of eco-innovations. Such a notion of difficulty possesses three desired properties: (i) parsimony – it is represented by a single value, (ii) interpretability – it can be regarded as an estimator of the otherwise complex notion of behavioral cost, and (iii) applicability – it can be easily measured through market surveys. In an extensive simulation and analytical study involving empirically measured difficulty and an agent-based model spanned on different social network structures, we show that innovation adoption may exhibit abrupt changes in market penetration as a result of even small changes in difficulty. The latter may be of particular interest to policy makers who have to make strategic decisions when introducing socially – but not necessarily individually – desired products and practices, like dynamic or green electricity tariffs.
This report is the result of two years of analysis and debate within the wider framework of the Europe INNOVA Sectoral Innovation Watch project. It sets out a conceptual framework for further analysis and policy development on eco-innovation; it brings together the available evidence on eco-innovation in a coherent framework; and it proposes a set of policy options for a more structured integration of ecoinnovation into mainstream policy. The report's authors have benefited from the advice and steer of a panel of high-level experts on eco-innovation.
This paper provides an overview of the emerging literature on the drivers of eco-innovation. Its main contribution lies in separating the drivers associated with the phases of development and diffusion and in identifying particular drivers based on different eco-innovation types. We find that research in this area primarily adopts the resource-based and institutional theories as its theoretical foundations and that the prevailing effects identified are those of regulations and market pull factors. Moreover, product eco-innovation, process eco-innovation, organizational eco-innovation, and environmental R&D investments seem to be driven by common drivers, such as regulations, market pull factors, EMS, and cost savings, as well as to be positively associated with company size. The majority of the studies in our literature review employ a quantitative research methodology and focus on the diffusion stage of eco-innovation. We end with providing a synthesis of drivers of companies’ eco-innovation and directions for future research.
The main goal of the study was to present the most significant technological innovations aiming at reduction of greenhouse gas emission in steel production. Reduction of greenhouse gas and dust pollution is a very important aspect in the iron and steel industry. New solutions are constantly being searched for to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG). The article presents the most recent innovative technologies which may be applied in the steel industry in order to limit the emission of GHG. The significance of CCS (CO2 Capture and Storage) and CCU (CO2 Capture and Utilization) in the steel industry are also discussed.
Eco-innovation is still a young area of research; however it has been an area of increasing concern for policy makers, academics and practitioners. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the existing body of literature on eco-innovations, and identify the most relevant publications in the field and the topics of interest. We have carried out a review of previous literature based on a Scopus search and selecting the discipline "Social Sciences and Humanities". The search offers us 384 articles. From their analysis, it can be observed that there is a clear increase in the relevance of this issue within academia and several thematic trends arise in ecoinnovation research, with drivers of eco-innovation being the most popular. Our main theoretical contribution is the development of a multilevel framework of eco-innovation drivers, with our literature review having a specific focus on systematizing the findings of the studies within this theme.
The UAE per capita energy consumption is one of the highest in the world. Since the energy sector is the center of most ecological problems facing the world today, eco-efficiency and eco-innovations are at the top of the sustainability agenda in most countries. The UAE "Green Economy for Sustainable Development" (2012-2021) aims to position the country as a center for the export and re-export of green products and technologies. In light of the above, the focus of this paper is to present a smart plug system for monitoring and controlling household energy consumption using a mobile application. The smart plug system is an essential component in smart grids as it provides real-time high-resolution information for distribution companies to aid them in decision-making. In addition, the study measures the perceived usefulness and satisfaction of the smart plug system and its mobile application in the UAE. The paper makes an important theoretical contribution by including environmental concern as an additional variable to a well-established information systems success model. Our findings suggest that the smart plug system provides users with convenient access to information regarding their personal energy consumption and allows them to control their per capital energy consumptions via the mobile application at very low costs. Further, we validated our theoretical model using structural equation modeling and conclude that environmental concern has an indirect impact on the perceived satisfaction and both an indirect and a direct impact on the perceived usefulness of the smart plug system. The practical implications of our study suggest that per capita energy consumption is likely to significantly decrease with wide adoption of the smart plug system in the UAE.
This review of consumer EV adoption studies provides theoretical and empirical insights for research, policy and practice.•Drivers for EV adoption include pro-environmental attitudes, symbolic meanings, identity, innovativeness and emotions.•Purchase cost of EVs is found to be a barrier to adoption while lower running cost is shown to be a driver.•Hands-on experience with EVs changed attitudes to a large extent, yet the negative evaluation of range did not change.•Joy, pride and positive emotions from driving an EV and environmental concerns positively influence adoption intentions.
Industrial Ecology (IE) is based on the relation between the natural ecosystem and economic ecosystem. The concept refers to the metaphorical relation between the natural and industrial ecosystems as a model for transforming unsustainable industrial systems. Several tools and strategies are particularly significant for the IE development. In other words, the primary purpose of industrial ecology is to assess and reduce the impact economic activities on the environment. Tourism, as an economic activity, resulting in a full range of environmental impacts, should be treated like any other industry. This paper propose uses a theoretical review focused on IE for to investigate what is the best way to implement industrial ecology in the tourism activities. It seemed interesting to search within the IE concept for a model for the tourism sector, one of the fields with the greatest environmental interaction and economic implications.
Sustainability policy in the early 2000s is based on and therefore influenced by scientific literature on ‘transition’. The importance of this link has inspired the authors to explore the structure of cooperating authors and citation networks in the field. In order to understand ‘transition’ literature, we compare it with an alternative term for change, ‘transformation’, which is also used in the context of socio-technical shifts towards sustainability. We expose the different structures of these fields with an overview of keywords, key references, key authors, and the coherence between references and authors.
By analysing co-author and citation networks, we find large differences in these groups of documents. The transition literature is characterised by a large network of directly and indirectly cooperating authors with clear clusters; transformation literature contains smaller author networks. Key transition authors are predominantly Dutch. They repeatedly write together and cite each other's work. The transition literature is tightly knit with high degrees of internal references and a clearly distinguishable core. Transformation literature has fewer connections between authors and articles. The connecting articles, each with many global citations, form its basis.
This analysis can be used as a step to continue the debate on the role of transition and transformation literature in sustainability and renewable energy policy. The transformation literature teaches us that older streams of thought are still relevant and may be used as ‘glue’ for linking change with respect to sustainable energy to wider developments. Rediscovering existing literature in new combinations may lead to promising new views on sustainable energy.
Eco-innovations, eco-efficiency and corporate social responsibility practices define much of the current industrial sustainability agenda. While important, they are insufficient in themselves to deliver the holistic changes necessary to achieve long-term social and environmental sustainability. How can we encourage corporate innovation that significantly changes the way companies operate to ensure greater sustainability?
Sustainable business models (SBM) incorporate a triple bottom line approach and consider a wide range of stakeholder interests, including environment and society. They are important in driving and implementing corporate innovation for sustainability, can help embed sustainability into business purpose and processes, and serve as a key driver of competitive advantage.
Many innovative approaches may contribute to delivering sustainability through business models, but have not been collated under a unifying theme of business model innovation. The literature and business practice review has identified a wide range of examples of mechanisms and solutions that can contribute to business model innovation for sustainability. The examples were collated and analysed to identify defining patterns and attributes that might facilitate categorisation.
Sustainable business model archetypes are introduced to describe groupings of mechanisms and solutions that may contribute to building up the business model for sustainability. The aim of these archetypes is to develop a common language that can be used to accelerate the development of sustainable business models in research and practice. The archetypes are: Maximise material and energy efficiency; Create value from ‘waste’; Substitute with renewables and natural processes; Deliver functionality rather than ownership; Adopt a stewardship role; Encourage sufficiency; Re-purpose the business for society/environment; and Develop scale-up solutions.
Climate change is high on the political agenda. Related to this eco-innovation is an emerging novel policy goal. Still we know very little on the industrial dynamics of the greening of industry as environmental research and policy making has been dominated by neoclassical economic thinking. This paper seeks to contribute to building eco-innovation theory based on an industrial dynamics approach. The paper redefines in many ways the way we understand environmental issues and environmental technologies more specifically, first of all in treating the company as innovator rather than as polluter. The paper argues more fundamentally that a stronger focus on knowledge based competitiveness and its relation to eco-innovation is needed in order to understand the nature and scope of green competitiveness and the rising role it plays in the globalising economy. More fundamentally the paper contributes to our understanding of the changing nature of competitiveness and paradigmatic changes in underlying knowledge structures. The paper offers a definition of eco-innovation and focuses on developing a taxonomy of eco-innovations. The taxonomy entails five main types of eco-innovations which are defined by the role these innovations play on the market rather than their environmental effects. Abstract Climate change is high on the political agenda. Related to this eco-innovation is an emerging novel policy goal. Still we know very little on the industrial dynamics of the greening of industry as environmental research and policy making has been dominated by neoclassical economic thinking. This paper seeks to contribute to building eco-innovation theory based on an industrial dynamics approach. The paper redefines in many ways the way we understand environmental issues and environmental technologies more specifically, first of all in treating the company as innovator rather than as polluter. The paper argues more fundamentally that a stronger focus on knowledge based competitiveness and its relation to eco-innovation is needed in order to understand the nature and scope of green competitiveness and the rising role it plays in the globalising economy. More fundamentally the paper contributes to our understanding of the changing nature of competitiveness and paradigmatic changes in underlying knowledge structures. The paper offers a definition of eco-innovation and focuses on developing a taxonomy of eco-innovations. The taxonomy entails five main types of eco-innovations which are defined by the role these innovations play on the market rather than their environmental effects. The paper argues that the taxonomy may be helpful in analysing the organisation of green knowledge production within innovation systems, which may lead to a greater understanding of the dynamics and patterns of the greening of industry.
The aim of this paper is to understand how firms engage in new processes, strategies and behaviors for sustainable innovation. It results on a non-linear, recursive and self-organized process that can be studied as a complex adaptive system. Based on an integrative literature review, we find five ontological sustainable innovation components: operational, collaborative, organizational, instrumental, and holistic. Our analysis also yields three complex adaptive system phenomena, which explain three main patterns of how components interact and interconnect: non-linearity, self-organization and emergence. The three phenomena are mutually dependent and specific to each company. Non-linearity explains the connection between the components, including positive and negative feedback loops and the rates of change, disorder, chaos and stability between them. Self-organization increases the order or regularity between the components interaction and even generates a new order and configuration with the different components behaving autonomously. Emergence involves radically new processes and component interactions due to new and radical experimentation, rule-breaking and disruptive sustainable technologies. Each phenomenon is explained in three extended examples, including three interaction mechanisms describing the dynamics of the five components. The outcomes of this research provide a new approach to theory-building in the sustainable innovation field and serve as the basis for further research on the complexity of engaging sustainable innovation in firms. This suggests new research questions regarding the role of firms in sustainable innovation and sustainable system transitions. It also calls for more interdisciplinary work on the issue due to the systemic nature of sustainable innovation at the firm level.
Eco-innovation will be a key driver of industry efforts to tackle climate change and realise "green growth" in the post-Kyoto era. Eco-innovation calls for faster introduction of breakthrough technologies and for more systemic application of available solutions, including non-technological ones. It also offers opportunities to involve new players, develop new industries and increase competitiveness. Structural change in economies will be imperative in coming decades.
This book presents the research and analysis carried out during the first phase of the OECD Project on Sustainable Manufacturing and Eco-innovation. Its aim is to provide benchmarking tools on sustainable manufacturing and to spur eco-innovation through better understanding of innovation mechanisms. It reviews the concepts and forms an analytical framework; analyses the nature and processes of eco-innovation; discusses existing sustainable manufacturing indicators; examines methodologies for measuring eco-innovation; and takes stock of national strategies and policy initiatives for eco-innovation.
The aim of this paper is to provide a critical review of the literature on the econometric analyses of firm-level determinants to eco-innovation. The review reveals some gaps in knowledge. First, an integrated theoretical framework which merges the insights from different approaches is missing. Second, the influence of some variables is still unsettled (demand-pull and cost-savings), whereas others have hardly been included in previous analyses (internal and international factors). Third, studies on the drivers to eco-innovation versus general innovation are relatively scarce with respect to those on the drivers to eco-innovation in general. Fourth, analyses of the relevance of different determinants to eco-innovation for distinct eco-innovator and eco-innovation types have largely been missing. Fifth, studies on middle-income and developing countries are still scarce. Sixth, the econometric analyses have relied on microeconometric methods based on cross-section data (mostly logit and probit models), whereas the use of panel data is virtually absent. Seventh, detailed econometric analyses on the distinct drivers and barriers to eco-innovation in different sectors and regions have not been performed so far. Finally, whether the position of the firm in the value chain and the market structure influence the propensity to eco-innovate are largely unexplored topics.
This paper is intended as a contribution to the ongoing conceptual development of sustainability-oriented innovation (SOI) and provides initial guidance on becoming and being sustainable. The authors organize and integrate the diverse body of empirical literature relating to SOI and, in doing so, develop a synthesized conceptual framework onto which SOI practices and processes can be mapped. Sustainability-oriented innovation involves making intentional changes to an organization's philosophy and values, as well as to its products, processes or practices to serve the specific purpose of creating and realizing social and environmental value in addition to economic returns. A critical reading of previous literature relating to environmental management and sustainability reveals how little attention has been paid to SOI, and what exists is only partial. In a review of 100 scholarly articles and 27 grey sources drawn from the period of the three Earth Summits (1992, 2002 and 2012), the authors address four specific deficiencies that have given rise to these limitations: the meaning of SOI; how it has been conceptualized; its treatment as a dichotomous phenomenon; and a general failure to reflect more contemporary practices. The authors adopt a framework synthesis approach involving first constructing an initial architecture of the landscape grounded in previous studies, which is subsequently iteratively tested, shaped, refined and reinforced into a model of SOI with data drawn from included studies: so advancing theoretical development in the field of SOI.
This paper reviews the literature on environmental innovation (EI) and systematizes it by means of an original methodology identifying the main directions in which the literature on EI has developed over time. In order to do so, two algorithms are adopted and used to analyse a citation network of journal articles and books. The main path analysis reveals that this literature revolves around the following topics: i) determinants of EI; ii) economic effects of EI; iii) environmental effects of EI and iv) policy inducement of EI. Each of these topics is discussed and implications from the main findings as well as possible future research extensions are outlined.
Various types of policy instruments have been implemented to reduce local and global emissions, but the impact on innovation of different instruments has received less attention. This paper reviews empirical studies of the innovation impact of four main types of policy instruments in two high-emitting sectors. The conclusions are threefold. (1) Policy plays a key role for the development and diffusion of environmental innovation in the studied sectors. (2) Different types of instruments promote different types of innovations: general economic instruments has primarily encouraged incremental innovation, general regulatory instruments has enforced improvements based on modular innovation, and technology-specific instruments appears to have been needed to support the development and deployment of radically new technologies. (3) All types of policy instruments face challenges in design and implementation: understanding the selection impact of the chosen instruments, implementing increasing stringency levels, committing to an appropriate scale, and safeguarding policy stability.
Facing the challenge of environmental degradation in China, a growing number of firms have begun to integrate environmental management systems into their business strategies and develop green innovation strategies. Based on the stakeholder theory, this paper attempts to explore the influences of stakeholders on the implementation of green process and green product innovation. Empirical results show that foreign customers play a significant role in driving companies to adopt strategy of green process and green product innovation. For foreign‐invested enterprises, the effect is limited to the adoption of green process innovation. It further reveals that community stakeholders and regulatory stakeholders have no significant effect on the corporate green process and green product innovation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Over the past decade, sustainable innovation has occupied a top-ranking position on the agenda of many firms. Sustainable innovation can be broadly defined as an innovation that has to consider environmental and social issues as well as the needs of future generations. Although sustainable innovation provides considerable new opportunities for companies it goes along with an increased complexity. This in turn requires certain organizational routines and capabilities to deal with the upcoming challenges. We explore what the specific driving forces are that increase the degree of sustainable innovation within a firm's innovation activities. We test them empirically for more than 1,100 firms in Germany and find that firms need to invest in internal absorptive capacities and to draw both broadly and deeply from external sources for innovation. In that sense, investments in employee training turn out to be more important than technological R&D expenditures.
The growing awareness regarding environmental sustainability has fully reached business reality. Consumers and companies alike are looking for alternatives to mitigate pressing environmental demands resulting from continuous population and economic growth. On the other hand, companies must deal with an increasingly competitive scenario where innovation is regarded as a survival need in most markets. It is thus clear that systematic academic research is paramount to guide companies to succeed in environmentally sustainable product innovation. In this context, this paper (i) consolidate extant research and aggregate findings of different studies on environmentally sustainable product innovation through an interpretative framework of published literature on the topic, and (ii) map critical success factors that drive the success of product innovation developed in this new logic of production and consumption. To achieve these objectives, a systematic literature review on environmentally sustainable product innovation was conducted. Results show that there are four main critical success factors for environmentally sustainable product innovation: market, law and regulation knowledge; interfunctional collaboration; innovation-oriented learning; and R&D investments. The factors identified in this research and corresponding variables were subjected to a brief empirical test by professionals. The test allowed a preliminary approval of the developed framework and identification of the most important variables within each factor. A research agenda based on the state-of-the-art on the topic is also proposed.
The production of food waste covers all the food life cycle: from agriculture, up to industrial manufacturing and processing, retail and household consumption. In developed countries, 42% of food waste is produced by households, while 39% losses occur in the food manufacturing industry, 14% in food service sector and remaining 5% in retail and distribution. Increasingly, industrial ecology concepts such as cradle to cradle and circular economy are considered leading principle for eco-innovation, aiming at “zero waste economy” in which waste are used as raw material for new products and applications. The large amount of waste produced by the food industry, in addition to being a great loss of valuable materials, also raises serious management problems, both from the economic and environmental point of view. Many of these residues, however, have the potential to be reused into other production systems, trough e.g. biorefineries. The present work focuses on the use of food waste coming from food manufacturing (FWm). Through extensive literature review, the authors present feasibility and constraints of applying industrial symbiosis in recovering waste from food processing, focusing on recycling (excluding energy recovery) of the solid and liquid waste from food processing industry. The main uses of functional ingredients derived from this transformation are presented and discussed, highlighting mainstream sectors of application, e.g. in the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industry.
This paper conducts an interdisciplinary, systematic review on sustainability-oriented innovations (SOIs) in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in a time frame between 1987 and 2010. Since the Brundtland report in 1987 a wide debate has emerged on eco-innovations (e.g. eco-design, cleaner production) and SOIs, that is, the integration of ecological and social aspects into products, processes, and organizational structures. While prior research has often dealt with SOI in large firms, the last decade has begun to generate broad knowledge on the specificities of SOI in SMEs. However, this knowledge is scattered across different disciplines, research communities, and journals. Therefore, this systematic review analyzes the heterogeneous picture with a focus on innovation and collaboration practices to delineate a research agenda. By consulting major research databases we have identified and analyzed 81 key journal articles. First, SME innovation behavior ranges from reactive, anticipatory, and innovation-based to sustainable entrepreneurship type behavior. Second, we can explain contingencies through taxonomies of sustainability strategies and a sustainable entrepreneurship perspective. Third, we can identify innovation practices at the product, process, and organizational level with still a strong focus on eco-innovation. From these results we argue that innovation-based and sustainable entrepreneurship type SMEs are capable of innovating more radically and realizing SOI at the intersection of product, process, and organizational level. Fourth, we can show how collaboration strategies and network engagement are viable strategies to activate reactive, facilitate anticipatory and innovation-based type SMEs. Co-innovation is a suitable strategy especially for sustainable entrepreneurs. Fifth, we identify major research gaps in the area of radical product and product-service innovations, innovation in and across sustainable supply chains from an SME perspective, SOI capacity building in SMEs, and a need to develop more streamlined innovation methods (e.g. life-cycle-analysis or cleaner production) that adhere to SME specificities. In a visual framework we aggregate the results and provide a guide to future research.
Abstract This paper reviews the empirical evidence for the following five hypotheses from the economic growth-liberalization-pollution debate: (a) economic growth will lead to a worsening pollution problem; (b) tighter environmental regulation will reduce economic growth; (c) trade liberalization will exacerbate environmental degradation, especially in developing countries with weak environmental protection; (d) tighter environmental protection in the developed countries will lead to a loss of competitiveness compared with that of countries with lower standards, especially in polluting industries; and (e) tighter environmental protection in the developed countries will lead to relocation of investment to developing countries with lax regulation, especially in polluting industries (the pollution haven hypothesis). Overall, the evidence for these hypotheses is found to be ambiguous and weak. It is further suggested that the growth-liberalization-environment empirical literature has neglected three important elements: (a) environmental innovation, (b) the international diffusion of environmental technologies, and (c) the economic benefits of a cleaner environment. Future research should integrate these elements into the debate. Analyses of endogenous environmental innovation in response to environmental policy, the tradable nature of environmental technologies, the role of trade and foreign direct investment as channels of environmental-technology transfer to developing countries, the effects of local environmental policies in encouraging the adoption of such technologies in developing countries, and the economic benefits of a cleaner environment would contribute to the development of sound, well-coordinated economic and environmental policies.
Sustainability oriented innovation and technology studies have received increasing attention over the past 10-15 years. In particular, a new field dealing with "sustainability transitions" has gained ground and reached an output of 60-100 academic papers per year. In this article, we aim to identify the intellectual contours of this emerging field by conducting a review of basic conceptual frameworks, together with bibliographical analysis of 540 journal articles in the field. It is against this background that we position the six papers assembled in a special section in Research Policy. These papers pave the way for new conceptual developments and serve as stepping-stones in the maturation of sustainability transition studies, by linking with the scholarly literatures of management studies, sociology, policy studies, economic geography, and modeling.
This article discusses empirical findings and conceptual elaborations of the last 10 years in strategic niche management research (SNM). The SNM approach suggests that sustainable innovation journeys can be facilitated by creating technological niches, i.e. protected spaces that allow the experimentation with the co-evolution of technology, user practices, and regulatory structures. The assumption was that if such niches were constructed appropriately, they would act as building blocks for broader societal changes towards sustainable development. The article shows how concepts and ideas have evolved over time and new complexities were introduced. Research focused on the role of various niche-internal processes such as learning, networking, visioning and the relationship between local projects and global rule sets that guide actor behaviour. The empirical findings showed that the analysis of these niche-internal dimensions needed to be complemented with attention to niche external processes. In this respect, the multi-level perspective proved useful for contextualising SNM. This contextualisation led to modifications in claims about the dynamics of sustainable innovation journeys. Niches are to be perceived as crucial for bringing about regime shifts, but they cannot do this on their own. Linkages with ongoing external processes are also important. Although substantial insights have been gained, the SNM approach is still an unfinished research programme. We identify various promising research directions, as well as policy implications.
Empirical analyses of the determinants of environmental innovations were rarely able to distinguish between different areas of environmental impacts. The paper tries to close this gap by employing a new and unique dataset based on the German Community Innovation Survey conducted in 2009. The main purpose of the paper is to test whether different types of eco-innovations (according to their environmental impacts) are driven by different factors. Besides a complex set of different supply, firm specific and demand factors, the literature on the determinants of environmental innovations accentuates the important role of regulation, cost savings and customer benefits. We find that current and expected government regulation is particularly important for pushing firms to reduce air (e.g. CO2, SO2 or NOx) as well as water or noise emissions, avoid hazardous substances and increase recyclability of products. Cost savings are an important motivation for reducing energy and material use, pointing to the role of energy and raw materials prices as well as taxation as drivers for eco-innovation. Customer requirements are another important source for eco-innovations, particularly with regard to products with improved environmental performance and process innovations that increase material efficiency, reduce energy consumption and waste and the use of dangerous substances. Firms confirm a high importance of expected future regulations for all environmental product innovations.
New technologies can be the basis for resource-efficient products and services and thus create eco-innovations, either by creating new functionalities in existing or new application fields or by substituting existing technologies in existing or new application fields. In this paper, an overview over different technology fields, products and strategies with resource efficiency potential, such as nanotechnologies, material science, manufacturing technologies, process technologies and cross-cutting issues, is presented. There is a special focus on applications from nanotechnology issuing, e.g. functional surfaces or new ‘smart' materials with special functionalities. Furthermore, it is shown how companies can use the method Resource Efficiency Technology Radar to identify and evaluate technologies with resource efficiency in order to incorporate them into their development activities.
The minimal processing industry for fruit and vegetables needs appropriate selection of raw materials and operation of improved sustainable strategies for reducing losses and providing high quality and safe commodities. The most important target for keeping overall quality of these commodities is a decrease in microbial spoilage flora as these cause both decay and safety problems. Every step in the production chain will influence microbial load and the implementation of an accurate disinfection program should be the main concern of commercial processing. The only step that reduces microbial load throughout the production chain is washing disinfection, and the keys are proper handling and optimizing existing techniques or a combination of them. Chlorine is a common efficient sanitation agent but there is the risk of undesirable by-products upon reaction with organic matter and this may lead to new regulatory restrictions in the future. Moreover, its efficacy is poor for some products. Consequently the minimal processing industry wants safer alternatives. Several antimicrobial washing solutions, O3, UV–C radiation, intense light pulses, super high O2, N2O and noble gases, alone or in combination, are presently considered promising treatments. However, change from use of conventional to innovative sanitizers requires knowledge of the benefits and restrictions as well as a practical outlook. This review addresses some recent results obtained with these eco-innovative sanitizers on fresh-cut plant commodities.
Sustainability's imperative of economic development in tandem with social advancement and environmental protection is widely accepted, but much debate remains about its practical implications for the products, materials and technologies of the future. A sustainable development perspective on current patterns of metals use and reuse reveals competing goals. Creating greater intra-generational equity in social and economic opportunity will increase the global stock of metals in use, through primary metals production, which could threaten environmental sustainability. The sustainable development agenda for metal production and use is therefore multifaceted, including dematerialisation, design for disassembly and recycling, optimisation of end-of-life product recovery and recycling systems, and environmental innovations in primary metals production. Upon consideration of this context, opportunities for environmental innovations in primary metals production are focused upon here, for which eco-efficiency (EE) provides the starting point.
This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of environmental innovation. We employ panel data models to study how environmental innovation by US manufacturing industries responded to changes in pollution abatement expenditures and regulatory enforcement during the period 1983 through 1992. We find that (1) environmental innovation (as measured by the number of successful environmental patent applications granted to the industry) responded to increases in pollution abatement expenditures, however, (2) increased monitoring and enforcement activities related to existing regulations did not provide any additional incentive to innovate. We also find some empirical evidence that environmental innovation is more likely to occur in industries that are internationally competitive.
Technological innovation systems and the multi-level framework are closely related concepts for the study of far-reaching technological change. They draw on common theoretical roots and analyze similar empirical phenomena. However, they have developed rather independent research strands over the past few years. The paper reviews the state of the art of both concepts and explores commonalities as well as differences. Against this background, we outline first elements of a path towards an integrated framework that combines the strengths of the two approaches and allows providing a better understanding of radical innovation processes and socio-technical transformations.
While innovation processes toward sustainable development (eco-innovations) have received increasing attention during the past years, theoretical and methodological approaches to analyze these processes are poorly developed. Against this background, the term eco-innovation is introduced in this paper addressing explicitly three kinds of changes towards sustainable development: technological, social and institutional innovation. Secondly, the potential contribution of neoclassical and (co-)evolutionary approaches from environmental and innovation economics to eco-innovation research is discussed. Three peculiarities of eco-innovation are identified: the double externality problem, the regulatory push/pull effect and the increasing importance of social and institutional innovation. While the first two are widely ignored in innovation economics, the third is at the least not elaborated appropriately. The consideration of these peculiarities may help to overcome market failure by establishing a specific eco-innovation policy and to avoid a ‘technology bias’ through a broader understanding of innovation. Finally, perspectives for a specific contribution of ecological economics to eco-innovation research are drawn. It is argued that methodological pluralism as established in ecological economics would be very beneficial for eco-innovation research. A theoretical framework integrating elements from both neoclassical and evolutionary approaches should be pursued in order to consider the complexity of factors influencing innovation decisions as well as the specific role of regulatory instruments. And the experience gathered in ecological economics integrating ecological, social and economic aspects of sustainable development is highly useful for opening up innovation research to social and institutional changes.
In this paper we review evolutionary economic modelling in relation to environmental policy. We discuss three areas in which evolutionary economic models have a particularly high added value for environmental policy-making: the double externality problem, technological transitions and consumer demand. We explore the possibilities to apply evolutionary economic models in environmental policy assessment, including the opportunities for making policy-making endogenous to environmental innovation. We end with a critical discussion of the challenges that remain.
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to provide the scientific community with some quantitative data of relevance to the evaluation of two major citation databases. In addition, various aspects of the methodology of database coverage comparisons are discussed. Design/methodology/approach – Calculations of the overlaps between the journal lists of Web of Science and Scopus and some other major scientific databases are presented. Findings – The results provide some measures of the overall title coverage as well as the amount of unique material in the sources studied. Research limitations/implications – The journal title overlap calculations are based on journal lists provided by the database producers rather than searches in the databases themselves. Any inaccuracies in the lists may be reflected in the results. Also, the lists do not provide any information about the depth and consistency of the coverage. The nature of possible error sources is discussed. Originality/value – The methodology chosen allows comparatively quick comparisons between the contents of databases. This makes it suitable for analysis of trends in database coverage.
While ISSI was founded in 1993, scientometrics and bibliometrics are now at least half a century old. Indeed, the field can be traced to early quantitative studies in the early 20th Century. In the thirties, it evolved to the "science of science." The publication of J. D. Bemal's Social Function ofScience in 1939 was a key transition point but th'e field lay dormant until after World War 11, when DJD Price's books Science Since Babylon in and Little Science, Big Science in were published in1961 and 1963. His role as the "father of scientometrics" is clearly evident by using the HistCite software to visualize his impact as well as the subsequent impact of the journal Scientornetrics on the growth of the field. Scientometrics owes its name to V. V. Nalimov, the author of Naukometriya, and to Tibor Braun who adapted the neologism for the journal. The primordial paper on citation indexing by Garfield which appeared in Science 1955 became a jnidge between Bemal and Price. The timeline for the evolution of scientometrics is demonstrated by a HistCite tabulation of the ranked citation index of all the 100,000 references cited in the 3,000 papers citing Price.
The idea of ecological modernisation originated in western Europe in the 1980s, gaining attention around the world by the late 1990s. At the core of this social scientific and policy-oriented approach is the view that contemporary societies have the capability of dealing with their environmental crises. Experiences in some countries demonstrate that modern institutions can incorporate environmental interests into their daily routines. Elsewhere, economic and political interests singularly dominate development trajectories, and environmental deterioration continues, challenging the premises of ecological modernisation. This volume brings together analyses of theory and practices of ecological modernisation from around the globe. Individual articles examine the applicability of this approach to advanced industrial countries, transitional economies and developing countries in North America, western, central, and eastern Europe, and South-East Asia, respectively. Authors critically examine the premises of Ecological Modernisation Theory, assess its value for understanding past and present environmental transformations, and outline paths for designing future sustainable development. The studies collected in this volume offer significant refinements, extensions, and critiques of Ecological Modernisation Theory and suggest important directions for continuing research on social and policy dimensions of environmental change.
We present VOSviewer, a freely available computer program that we have developed for constructing and viewing bibliometric maps. Unlike most computer programs that are used for bibliometric mapping, VOSviewer pays special attention to the graphical representation of bibliometric maps. The functionality of VOSviewer is especially useful for displaying large bibliometric maps in an easy-to-interpret way. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, an overview of VOSviewer's functionality for displaying bibliometric maps is provided. In the second part, the technical implementation of specific parts of the program is discussed. Finally, in the third part, VOSviewer's ability to handle large maps is demonstrated by using the program to construct and display a co-citation map of 5,000 major scientific journals.
This collection presents in one, easily-accessible volume, a series of thoughtful, up-to-date review essays by leading scholars from around the world on the dynamics and politics of institutional environmental reform, and a selection of the best published works and debates from a quarter-century of scholarship on what has come to be known as Ecological Modernisation Theory. Included are key foundational works never before published in English, translated especially for this volume, and an agenda for continued scholarship in this important area.
Attitudes of European entrepreneurs towards eco-innovation: Analytical report
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The drivers for adoption of eco-innovation
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