Enviroment Weblog

Eco-efficiency is a management philosophy that fits with competitiveness and allows us to move away from prescriptive regulations to greater self-regulation and market-based policies. Eco-efficiency may thus be stimulated without going down the road of more regulation. The challenge is to achieve it with less regulation by turning eco-efficiency into a mainstream business strategy.  A transition towards a more eco-efficient economy requires action and renewal by many actors. Government, business, investors,  consumers and researchers and educators all have their important roles to play in redesigning the innovation system. Below we present 6 strategies for how governments may support this transition process towards greater an eco-efficient economy. 

The main strategies for eco-efficient innovation are:

1. Making companies proactive
2. Improving sustainability assessment by compannies and customers
3. Improving the system of innovation for eco-innovation
4. Targeted polices for eco-innovations
5. The use of market-based instruments
6. Policy integration.

It should be realized that all six strategies are needed for developing an eco-efficient market economy with good conditions for eco-innovations. However, more attention should be made to the interplay and balance between the six groups of strategies. It matters how they are used (the relative mix). If company self-regulation is to play a major role, regulation and eco-taxation must provide incentives for this. The scope of each strategy is limited: not all companies can be made proactive and it is not feasible to have emissions trading policies for thousands of pollutants. 

 A successful example: Danish Clean Technology Development Program­me

Under this programme, firms and private and semi-governmental research institutions could apply for financial aid for developing and implementing clean technology. The pro­gramme was oriented at stimulating preventive process solutions and co-opera­tion among technology suppliers, research institutes, consultancy firms, and users. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency played an active role in selecting environmentally beneficial projects and in finding the right partner with whom to cooperate. That is, the agency acted as a match-maker to elicit environmentally innovative solu­tions, something that previous subsidy programmes had failed to do. It is an example of a successful partnership between business, government and knowledge institutes.