Abstract
Although many potentially significant eco-innovations exist, many of them leading to competitive gains and social and environmental benefits, they are underused, that is, they do not diffuse easily and quickly in the economy. Many factors (barriers and/or absence of drivers) contribute to this.
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Notes
Rennings, K. (2000) ‘Redefining innovation: Eco-innovation research and the contribution from ecological economics’, Ecological Economics, 32: 319–332;
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See, in this respect, the overview of the literature between 1990 and 2007 carried out by Montalvo, C. (2008) ‘General wisdom concerning the factors affecting the adoption of cleaner technologies: A survey 1990–2007’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 16 (1), 7–13;
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However, other authors claim that the relationship between firm size and eco-innovation follows a U-shape: the largest and the smallest firms are the most environmentally innovative (Hemmelskamp, J. (2000) Environmental Taxes and Standards: An Empirical Analysis of the Impact on Innovation in: Hemmelskamp, J., Leone, F. and Rennings, K. (eds) Innovation-oriented Environmental Regulation: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Analysis (Heidelberg, Germany: Physica Verlag), 303–330.
Seroa da Motta empirically assesses the relevance of foreign ties (origin of capital) on environmental performance, showing a positive relationship (Seroa da Motta, R. (2006) ‘Analyzing the environmental performance of the Brazilian industrial sector’, Ecological Economics, 57: 269–281).
Wagner also considers the variable ‘firm legal structure’, that is, whether the company is in sole proprietorship or not. However, a priori, it is difficult to find any causal relation between this variable and eco-innovation (Wagner, M. (2008) ‘Empirical influence of environmental management on innovation: evidence from Europe’, Ecological Economics, 66(2–3), 392–402).
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Many authors have proposed taxonomies on the environmental strategies followed by the firms. According to Faucheux et al (1998), firms which do not react to new environmental challenges follow an inactive (or passive) strategy and those firms which see environmental issues as an additional cost that should be minimized (and not as a business opportunity) follow a defensive (or reactive) strategy and usually invest a significant amount of money and efforts to challenge environmental regulation. Finally, proactive firms mostly view environmental issues as a business opportunity and usually anticipate the implementation of environmental regulation (Faucheux, S., Nicolai, I and O’Connor, M. (1998) ‘Globalisation, competitiveness, governance and environment: What prospects for Sustainable Development?’ in Faucheux, S., Gowdy, J. and Nicolai, I. (eds) Sustainability and Firms: Technological Change and the Changing Regulatory Environment (Cheltenham (UK): Edward Elgar), 1–40).
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Visser, R., Jongen, M. and Zwetsloot, G. (2008) ‘Business-driven innovations towards more sustainable chemical products’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 16 (1), S85–94.
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The relevance of the user-supplier relationship in encouraging eco-innovation has been empirically tested and confirmed (see Dupuy, D. (1997) ‘Technological change and environmental policy: The diffusion of environmental technology’, Growth and Change, 28, 49–66;
and Van Dijken, K. et al (1999) Adoption of Environmental Innovations (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers)).
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Visser, R., Jongen, M. and Zwetsloot, G. (2008) ‘Business-driven innovations towards more sustainable chemical products’, Journal of Cleaner Production, 16 (1), 85–94.
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Kerr, S. and Newell, R. (2001) ‘Policy-induced technology adoption: evidence from the US lead phasedown’, Journal of Industrial Economics, 51 (3), 317–343.
Jaffe and Stavins found that adoption decisions were more sensitive to up-front cost considerations than to longer term operating expenses. The costs of the technology had a significant and negative impact on adoption and this influence was three times as large as that of energy prices. In much the same vein, Anderson and Newell (2003) observed that 40 per cent of plants were more influenced by the impact of initial costs than by annual cost savings–especially for SMEs (Jaffe, A. B. and Stavins, R. N. (1995) ‘Dynamic incentives of environmental regulations: The effects of alternative policy instruments on technology diffusion’, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 29, S43–S63).
Colombo, M. G. and Mosconi, R. (1995) ‘Complementarity and cumulative learning effects in the early diffusion of muliple technologies’, Journal of Industrial Economics, 43 (1), 13–48.
Unruh, G. C. (2000) ‘Understanding Carbon Lock-in’, Energy Policy, 28, 817–30;
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© 2009 Javier Carrillo-Hermosilla, Pablo del Río González & Totti Könnölä
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Carrillo-Hermosilla, J., del González, P.R., Könnölä, T. (2009). Barriers to eco-innovation. In: Eco-Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230244856_3
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