Eco-innovation is a business approach which promotes sustainability throughout the entire life cycle of a product, while also boosting a company’s performance and competitiveness.
It can help businesses access new and expanding markets, increase productivity, attract new investment, increase profitability across the value chain, and help stay ahead of regulations and standards.
Eco-innovation is the development of products and processes that contribute to sustainable development. This includes a range of related ideas, from environmentally friendly technological advances to socially acceptable innovative paths towards sustainability.
Eco-innovations may create new types of commodities or even new sectors of economics.
Eco-innovation is part of the larger ecosystem of environmental technology, eco-efficiency, eco-design, environmental design, sustainable design, and sustainable innovation.
Eco-Innovations and Diffusion
Most people hold positive attitudes towards various types of eco-innovations. But adoption rates of solutions remain unsatisfactorily low because of the “Not in My Back Yard” (NIMBY) mentality.
Social psychology and economic behavior models can be used to overcome these challenges.
According to theory on the diffusion of innovation, different adopters of innovation can be in different stages of acceptance. For example, research on eco-innovations in the construction sector reveals that for eco-innovations to gain acceptance among B2B actors they need to demonstrate improved efficiency, create new market opportunities, and help to change the mindset from the traditional mass production to that of creating value.
Hence, for such innovations to diffuse in a larger market they need to address industry-specific problems, and not simply act as a substitute for an existing technology.
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Eco-Innovation. UN Environment Program. https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/resource-efficiency/what-we-do/responsible-industry/eco-innovation
Green Business. European Commission. https://green-business.ec.europa.eu/eco-innovation_en