Whilst substantial research has been conducted on the topics of green growth and eco-innovation, there is a widespread feeling that this research is not being adequately linked to the needs of economic transition towards environmental, social and economic goals for sustainable development.
At national and regional levels, the application of green growth principles is supported through the implementation of policies and investments aiming to trigger technology adoption and stimulate behavioural change. However, a much stronger connection needs to be forged between research and practitioners, to make sure that policy and decision-makers, as well as businesses and civil society, gain maximum impact from such interventions.
Measures to support the transition to a green economy are highly dependent on a number of contexts, with different countries and industrial sectors having different needs, infrastructures, technological trajectories and capabilities to eco-innovate. These differences are further enhanced by the variety of definitions that exist amongst separate but overlapping concepts of green growth, eco-innovation, and sustainable development, with different definitions often highlighting the preoccupations of their authors. With this in mind, there is an urgent need to review, assess and consolidate differing concepts related to eco-innovation and their role in implementing green economy strategies around the world.
To support this, the green.eu project is creating the Innovation for Sustainable Development Network (inno4SD.net) – a research-based network which aims to accelerate the transition towards green growth. inno4SD.net is designed to address challenges, ranging from the conceptualisation of the green economy, to the harmonisation of approaches for coherently assessing performance, and identifying gaps (successes and failures) for the effective adoption of technologies that can create win-win results.
The relationship between innovation and sustainable development is important, but not at all straight forward. To speed up economic transition, we need to better understand global webs of constraints and repercussions of different innovation pathways, with attention to how the public interest can be incorporated into innovation processes. This includes a need to explore drivers for systemic eco-innovation that trigger long-term transformations, address all aspects of the environment and resource use (beyond just low-carbon and energy considerations), and are thoughtful of poverty eradication and socio-economic development needs.
The inno4sd network will gather stakeholders, co-ordinate activities to ensure effective communication and knowledge sharing, and carry out global cross-disciplinary research using a systemic approach, integrating socio-economic and environmental sciences. The innovations for analysis by the network include changes in governance, ownership and systems of production and consumption, besides innovations in products, services and technologies.
The network’s activities will include the organisation of four symposia events to bring together potential network members, production of policy ‘Rapid Reviews’, and the provision of online tools to present policy agendas and recommendations. The project is also organising a series of twelve webinars and creating a communications and networking tool, called Profile.Net, which will allow discussion amongst sustainability experts. The online services of the network will be made available through the Eco-Innovation Knowledge Platform, Innovation Seeds (www.InnovationSeeds.eu).
inno4SD.net is holding its first Symposium event on ‘Harmonisation of Concepts of Green Economy and Eco-Innovation’, in Brussels on 3-4 November 2015. The Symposium will explore synergies and overlaps across different global regions, make the concept operational and break it down to specific areas of eco-innovation, contribute to conceptual and operational clarification and start to develop a concept of measuring eco-innovations in a global context.
The inno4sd network has been initiated by the green.eu project (‘European Global Transition Network on Eco-Innovation, Green Economy and Sustainable Development’), which received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project consortium is made up of twelve partners from Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Belgium and South Africa.
More information about the inno4SD Network and the upcoming Symposium is available at the project website, www.inno4sd.net.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the GGKP or its Partners.