Steering innovations towards a green economy : Understanding government intervention

Summary, in English

In this paper we analyse institutional conditions facilitating the transition towards a green economy by encouraging investment in the enhancement of natural capital and social equity, focussing especially on government interventions. Presenting a conceptual institutional model how innovation generally occurs, we depict system levels that can be influenced by government interventions to facilitate societal innovations towards a green economy. We hypothesize that the transition to a green economy is about extending the possibility frontier outwards towards a greener economy while at the same time limiting the “action space” at the brown economy end; a normative evaluation framework is presented to assess transitions correspondingly. We elaborate on the emerging lessons for governance by examining evidence from five selected European case studies, and provide a non-exhaustive list of impacts that government intervention may have on the action spaces available at different system levels.

• Author: Nils Droste; Bernd Hansjürgens; Peter Kuikman; Nils Otter; Riina Antikainen; Pekka Leskinen; Kati Pitkänen; Laura Saikku; Eleonore Loiseau; Marianne Thomsen
• Publishing year: 2016-11-01
• Language: English
• Pages: 426-434
• Publication/Series: Journal of Cleaner Production
• Volume: 135
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.06.123
• Document type: Journal article
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Keywords: Governance; Green economy; Innovation; Natural capital; Social equity; Transition management
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISSN: 0959-6526