Environmental innovation
The term environmental innovation includes all innovations that serve to improve the environment . The aim of the environmental innovation is to avoid and reduce environmental pollution through anthropogenic activities, to remediate damage that has already occurred, and to diagnose and control environmental pollution.
General
Environmental innovations can arise on or outside of markets. They include technical, organizational, social and institutional innovations and aim to reduce the extent of environmental use at the lowest possible cost and to enable the careful use of natural resources .
Environmental innovations are characterized by a twofold externality , since neither the innovator nor the person who invests in environmental protection can easily reap the benefits of his actions. There is a risk that the actual level of environmental innovations will fall short of the macroeconomically desirable activities.
Normative objectives of environmental innovations
The environmental innovation pursues the normative goal of environmental and nature protection , as well as resource conservation . Firstly, through environmental innovation, resource consumption should be reduced, secondly, environmental pollution should be restricted and, thirdly, taking into account a stock of resources - environmental capital should be substituted by productive capital . The expectations of environmental innovations are aimed at avoiding foreseeable undesirable ecological developments. As a result, environmental innovations are often the goal of state control and are influenced by state action to a much greater extent than other innovations. The outstanding role of the state is an important criterion for differentiating it from most other types of innovation.
Examples of environmental innovations
technical environmental innovations
- Development and introduction of environmentally friendly consumer goods and products
- Environmentally friendly extraction and substitution of raw materials and development of new resources
- Development and introduction of new technologies which enable a more economical use of resources and / or cause fewer emissions
economic environmental innovations
- Organizational optimization of operational performance processes (organizational structure, corporate strategy, corporate culture )
social environmental innovations
- Development of new decision- making norms and behaviors
institutional and legal environmental innovations
- Redesign of the overall social framework and principles of order
Forms of environmental innovation
Technical environmental innovations can be differentiated into two environmental development lines:
- End-of-pipe technologies are technologies that follow the actual production or consumption process. These are disposal or recycling technologies that reduce the environmental impact. (e.g. downstream filter systems )
- Integrated technologies : In contrast to end-of-pipe solutions, integrated environmental innovations start directly at the source of the emissions, i. H. on the production process or on the product, and includes all measures that lead to a reduction in the use of raw materials and energy as well as emissions. (e.g. substitution of CFCs in spray cans)
Other subdivisions of environmental innovations differentiate between radical and incremental innovation as well as technical, organizational, social, economic, institutional and legal environmental innovation.
literature
- P. Klemmer: Innovations and the environment. Innovative effects of environmental policy instruments. Berlin 1999.
- M. Jänicke: Environmental innovations from the perspective of policy analysis: from the instrumental to the strategic approach of environmental policy. Berlin 1997.
- J. Hemmelskamp: Environmental Policy and Innovation. A theoretical and empirical study. Mannheim 1998.
- A. Endres: Environmental Economics . Stuttgart 2007, pp. 198–210: "On the environmental induction of environmental technology progress"