Drivers of environmental innovation - Vinnova

”sustainable development is a key business driver for the firm”. The most
important factors supporting this view were firm image and brand value. Of
medium importance were new product and service advantage, staff values and
principles and cost advantage. Direct demands from regulators, customers and
special interest groups were considered to be the least important. Firm image
and brand value were thus considered much more important than customer or
regulator demands (Dearing, 2000).
2.3 Information and knowledge requirements
As noted above environmental innovations are said to encompass more
information problems than other innovations. However, what are the
information and knowledge requirements of environmental innovations?
Environmental innovations must not only be environmentally beneficial, but
must also meet a range of other demands such as user requirements on
functionality and cost. It should also be possible to produce environmental
innovations with the existing production processes (Kemp, Forthcoming). A
basic restriction is that development and production will have to be performed
with the knowledge and competence already existing in the firm. Although
new competences can be acquired through learning processes, such processes
are time consuming. This illustrates the path dependency that environmental
innovations share with other innovations.
Environmental innovations also give rise to special problems. The information
requirement of environmentally innovative firms is higher than in other cases.
Firms find it hard to gain an overview of the available environmental
technologies, and to obtain full information on their effect and applicability
(Hemmelskamp, Forthcoming).
A broader range of competences is needed for environmental innovations than
for other types of innovations, and managing this variety of competences can be
difficult. The WBSCD has studied how 80 firms with an expressed commitment
to sustainable development and environmental protection incorporate their
commitment into innovation management. The respondents – often senior
managers with responsibility for aspects of innovation, product development
and technology management - generally felt uncertain of their ability to manage
and assess the creative skills required to address the broader agenda of
sustainable development (Dearing, 2000).
What do firms do to meet the information and knowledge needs they face when
engaged in environmental innovation? Part of the solution lies in receiving
information from external sources. Equipment manufacturers play an
important role in the supply of information to the suppliers of environmental
innovations. Suppliers of materials and components provide important
information for developing environmentally friendly products and reducing
consumption of materials. The results of a German study indicate that
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