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286 P. Ekins be disclosed due to their sensitive commercial nature—making it hard for the policy maker to accurately predict potential rates of innovation, as they will rarely be party to such sensitive information. & Standards—It seems from analysis in case studies 1, 2 and 5 that setting standards for industry can work effectively. An incentivised approach, with technical standards and green procurement plans, allowed firms to approach the target flexibly and innovate to meet it. However, when standards are set low (such as in case study 1—USA) unsurprisingly there is little incentive to exceed the benchmark. & Focus—It is apparent that unless actions are targeted to specific areas and take into account external trends, as they were in Japan with the Top Runner Programme, policies will generally not aid in encouraging innovation. This was seen in the UK PV market where policies both failed to take account of external developments in the global market, and involved low levels of funding, resulting in insignificant levels of innovation or deployment. & Historical trends—There can be historical factors at play which present barriers to innovation in certain sectors or geographical locations. For example in the pulp and paper industry innovation is low due to the mature nature of the industry, and the fact that the median age of paper machines in Europe is 23 years. In the USA the historical setting of low levels for fuel economy improvements in automobiles encouraged a poor performance in the sector. The headlines lessons learned from the case studies may be summarised as: & Inducing innovation requires strong policy. Weak policy, whether in terms of weak standards (e.g. 1—USA), or low levels of expenditure (3—UK) will not be likely to achieve it. & Classic regulation was the single most important type of policy in the case studies where eco-innovation was stimulated, sometimes combined with marketbased instruments (especially public purchasing or subsidies). However, an overall conclusion from the case studies was that ‘No general statements can be made about the kind of policy instruments that are best suited to support the development and diffusion of environmental technology.’ Oosterhuis (p.vi, 2006). & Regarding learning curves and economies of scale, case studies 2, 3 and 5 all found that when policy, or external factors, encouraged innovation, positive relationships between increases in production and reduction in costs were found. The PV case study noted that it was not merely learning curves of PV which must be taken into account, but also learning curves of associated infrastructural technology. In terms of the categorisation introduced earlier, Table 2 shows that the great majority of the policy instruments used in the case studies were ‘hard’ (market-based or regulatory) rather than ‘soft’. In fact, with only one exception (and with a Poor result) the latter were really only employed as subsidiary instruments. In such a role, however, they still may help the policy to have a better overall result. It is also interesting to reflect on the case studies in terms of Fig. 4. In all cases, institutions are important to the implementation of any policy, whether ‘hard’ or
Eco-innovation for environmental sustainability 287 ‘soft’. New instruments may require new institutions, or institutional change, but whether or not this is the case strong branding of the policy is likely to help its implementation and contribute to its effectiveness. The branding, however, will be crucially related to the political and cultural context, so that it is difficult to make generalisations across different countries, except to say that the context is likely to find most obvious expression through the ‘soft’ instruments that are deployed. 6 Conclusions History shows that innovation is one of the normal characteristics of markets and capitalist economic development, and current innovation rates are, in historical terms, very high. However, normal innovation is driven by a desire for market success, which may have little to do with environmental impacts. In fact, normal innovation may increase or decrease environmental impacts. The environmental policy makers’ task is to seek to harness normal innovation forces in order to achieve win-win outcomes, i.e. environmental improvements as well as improvements in products and processes from a market point of view. Because innovation is inherently unpredictable, and there is no methodology that can reliably assess the ‘without policy’ counterfactual, there is an inherent problem in assessing the results of policy in relation to eco-innovation. However, as shown above, careful case study comparisons can generate insights as to whether and how eco-innovation has been achieved. Just because policy can achieve eco-innovation does not mean that it will be easy to introduce. As this paper has made clear throughout, there is a political economy of eco-innovation as of any other subject that affects the distribution of resources. Aghion et al. (2009a) present worrying evidence that, despite recent rhetoric on green innovation, not only is this not the dominant direction of innovation, it is even lagging behind the rate of non-directed innovation. This situation will have to change if increasingly serious environmental problems are to be effectively addressed. The eco-industries, supported by public opinion, need to become crucial actors in the political economy of eco-innovation if such innovation is to become more widespread and transformational, leading to a profound eco-innovatory transition. Such a transition (like all transitions) will adversely affect many well established industries and interests and will be fiercely resisted by those interests. The ecoindustries need to become an increasingly effective counter-force to this resistance. Because eco-innovation will be largely driven by public policy rather than by (free) markets, established industries will do everything they can to prevent or slow the introduction of policies to promote eco-innovation (for example, the campaign by the US fossil fuel industries against the climate policies of President Obama, [Goldenberg 2009]). At the same time, for global environmental problems like climate change, there is little point in imposing policies on firms subject to global competition and industries that are mobile, such that they simply relocate without any overall change to global production or consumption or environmental impacts. Although there is very little evidence to date that such relocation has actually taken place, the possibility is resonant in the political rhetoric around environmental policy
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