Greening of Innovation
This paper reports the results of a investigation into how green issues are influencing the process of Research and Development (R&D) as a contributor to innovation. R&D and other managers in UK companies were interviewed about their work, the methods used to select and manage that work, and the way in which the green agenda is affecting the organisation and its activities. The investigation looked at changes the 'green agenda' may be making in the innovation framework of firms, and differences between the flows of signals about green issues and those about other product performance issues around these frameworks. The paper concludes that, if the process of developing greener products and services is to be speeded up, then supply companies with the capacity and will to innovate need to push green issues on to the agenda of their dialogue with users in order actively to seek opportunities for progress.
Towards Sustainable Households: A Methodology for Developing Sustainable Technological and Social Innovations
A high Factor environmental efficiency improvement (such as towards a Factor
20 by the year 2050) is needed if we assume a doubling of the world population
combined with a fivefold increase of wealth per capita with a halving of the
total global environmental burden. But this cannot be achieved through good
housekeeping and technological innovation alone; any technological solutions
will have to be combined with social innovations, in lifestyles and cultures.
This paper describes the conclusions of the SusHouse (Strategies towards the
Sustainable Household) Project that has been exploring possible socially and
technologically innovative strategies for sustainable households. The Project
has covered 3 household 'functions': Clothing Care, Shelter (Heating, Cooling
and Lighting) and Food (Shopping, Cooking and Eating). These have been studied
in 5 European countries (Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, and UK). The
methodology of the Project has involved stakeholder workshops, the construction
of design-orienting scenarios, environmental, economic and consumer assessment
of the scenarios and strategy formulation. The paper describes:
Technological Change, Industry Structure Change and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
The patterns of production and trade arising
from technological changes will have important implications for the future
state of the environment, especially concerning greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs).
This paper is an output of the UK Tyndall Centre's E-Tech project which is
seeking to construct an Economy-Energy-Emissions model that incorporates what
is known about the evolution of technologies and their locational implications
over timescales for 5 to 100 years.
In attempting to incorporate insights from theories on the dynamics and evolution
of technologies, there are important points to make about: the emergence,
development and decline of different sectors/industries, the location of industry
and patterns of trade. The concept of technology we use is not one where firms
and countries can produce and use innovations by dipping freely into a general
"stock" or "pool" of technological knowledge. Rather,
innovation activities should be seen as firm-specific, local and cumulative.
These processes - change in main branches of production, shifts in geographic
structure of production and trade - have important effects on the environment
through emissions from production and transportation, which will differ by
country and region.
The paper describes a method in which the different sectors of the economy
can be evaluated on their likelihood of being affected by those 'pervasive'
technologies that might change the level of GHG-emissions in the sectors in
three time periods: 2000-2020, 2020-2050 and 2050-2100. Sectoral classification
is based on Pavitt's taxonomy of sectors (Pavitt, 1984) as modified to include
service sectors by Miozzo (2001).
The paper reports the first results of the application of the method, examining
both the likely impacts and the regional implications of those impacts of
three technologies - Information Technology, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology
- that are likely to have the most pervasive influence over the next 50 years.