OECD:n raportti ekoinnovaation edistämisestä: How can governments boost green technologies?
28.03.2011
Governments looking to boost their economies, create jobs and meet environmental targets see eco-innovation as part
of the solution. Some subsidise research and development. Others stimulate demand by labelling energy efficient
appliances and regulating against environmentally harmful products. All are looking for efficient policies to make it
work.
Better Policies
to Support Eco-innovation gives examples of what works well, and why, by comparing national strategies to develop
and disseminate eco-innovation.
“With climate change and the depletion of natural resources threatening our future, we need to change the way we think,
the way we live and the way we do business. We must develop new ideas and new technologies, and eco-innovation has a
key role to play”, said OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.
The review notes that eco-innovation does not necessarily involve new knowledge or new technologies – it is as much
about how and where we use existing technologies. Moreover, eco-innovation does not always start in the environmental
domain. For example, carbon capture and storage technologies are largely based on technologies tested in the 1920s in
the chemical sector.
Governments need to increase co-ordination amongst ministries and levels of government in order to promote
eco-innovation. A comprehensive national strategy for eco-innovation can help to do this. The report shows that such
strategies must take into account the size of the domestic market for environmental goods and services, the national
capacity to innovate, and the vigour of the country's venture capital industry.
Other variables have to be factored in for specific innovations. As an illustration, in the case of electric cars,
where technological options are many and mutually exclusive, countries can choose to shift swiftly to full electric
cars, or use hybrids as a transition. The decision will depend on the size of the domestic market, urban density and
the share of renewables in electricity generation. This example also highlights that countries confronted with huge
uncertainty regarding technologies, environmental benefits, demand patterns, costs and economic models for innovative
goods, should cooperate to do more research and encourage trials and experiments to explore the full scope of
alternative technical options.
Another feature of the report is the analysis of the interactions between policies to support eco-innovation and market
dynamics. The push for improved carbon capture and storage (CCS) provides a good illustration. In Canada, mature
technologies are used by the oil and gas industry to enhance their operating efficiency. In Germany, where there is a
price on carbon emissions, the power sector developed innovative CCS technologies to reduce the CO2 emitted by
coal-fired power plants. France, where no gas is produced and power is predominantly generated through nuclear
industry, has yet another economic interest in developing CCS technologies – it sells them to other countries.
To obtain a copy of Better Policies to Support Eco-innovation please e-mail: news.contact(at)oecd.org.
A copy of the publication is also available on the OECD’s protected
site for journalists. For further information, journalists are invited to contact Xavier Leflaive in OECD’s
Environment directorate: Xavier.Leflaive(ay)oecd.org or
by telephone: + 33 1 45 24 92 94.
For more information on OECD work on eco-innovation, visit: www.oecd.org/greengrowth; www.oecd.org/environment/innovation; www.oecd.org/sti/innovation/green
