Making materialisation history

Posted 10 April 2008 - 11:21am by Frédéric Morand

 

MAKING MATERIALISATION HISTORY

Eco-innovation as the most efficient cross-sectoral driving force for a competitive Europe in the global economy

 

Frédéric Morand (published: 27 Oct. 2007 - last revised: 11 Nov. 2008)

This version is a personal synthesis and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Eco-innovation Panel or the opinion of Eco Innovation.

This version differs from the version finally retained for the Europe INNOVA Athens meeting, notably by its focus on environmental policy, on the importance of learning, and the definition of eco-innovation (stressing the environmental effects rather than the environmental aims, and paying attention to the eco-innovation's institutional context).

Contributions from Sebastian Gallehr (Panel Chairman, e5 - European Business Council for Sustainable Energy), Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek (Factor 10 Institute), and Friedrich Hinterberg (SERI - Sustainable Europe Research Institute) are gratefully acknowledged.

Context - Members of the Eco-innovation Panel within Europe INNOVA wish to send an awareness-raising letter to the rest of the project and to the DG Enterprise of the European Commission. The main concern they wish to express is that eco-innovation should not be circumscribed to a specific panel or sector of the Europe Innova project, and by extension, of the economy at large. On the contrary, eco-innovation should be transversal to all panels and sectors of the Europe Innova project and of the economy.

Approach - To address the Europe Innova project and the DG Enterprise of the European Commission in a letter conveying the above concern in a concise and practical terms. The approach consists in inviting, discussing and editing the views held by concerned members, via an online repository and moderated forum space, and where possible taking on board the achievements of other Europe Innova panels.

Abstract - Occidental economies are losing their traditional competitive edge because of emerging competitors and the limits of their materialisation: high intensity of material resource use coupled with poor productivity, dependency on raw material prices and on politically, socially and environmentally unpredictable resource providers. In this context, Europeans' environmental policy, which has built over the last 4 decades an unrivalled commitment to environmental integration, could prove an effective asset as it is mainstreaming eco-innovation within the Lisbon Strategy. The public perception of eco-innovation, however, should not be taken for granted, nor the circulation of corresponding knowledge through necessary, yet still to be designed, education strategies. Four recommendations are formulated.

(full text)

Loosing the edge

Europe and the USA for over a century have delivered intellectual, financial and technical leadership models to an ever-expanding world economy. But the erosion of this historical edge is well underway.

Firstly, economic competitors have begun to emerge. Japan has been very successful in challenging the western lead during the past 40 years. China, India and other countries are also rapidly building up their technical and investment capacity.

Secondly, a global sustainability crisis is unfolding. Our industrial models rely on an enormous materialisation expressed by the intensity of natural resources (such as land, fuel, minerals, biomass, pollution-free air and water) in the economy (1). Under current materialisation levels, the productivity of resource use is strikingly low. This means resources are wasted. Generalising western lifestyles would require at least two planets Earth as resource basis. Meanwhile, rising raw material prices are the fastest growing cost factor in the production sector today. Two other undesirable effects of materialisation are the economic dependency on politically unpredictable resource providers, and widespread social and environmental adverse effects (such as climate change).
Increasing the productivity of resource use

One asset Europeans have in this situation is their unique perception that the corresponding strategic risks are unacceptable. Europeans are becoming increasingly alarmed of the fact that resource-intensive economies will not survive the predicted resource shortages and the environmental consequences of their lifestyle. Europeans are thus redefining their specific role in the global economy, looking for competitive advantages over the rest of the world - not only in today's perspective but also in the next 20 to 50 years.

And in the last 35 years, Europe has begun developing a unique capacity that no other region in the world possesses. This capacity is the European environmental policy that the Commission and the Member States, through the Lisbon process, is developing today into an explicit sustainable development strategy.

Lisbon, indeed, aims to make Europe ‘a beacon of economic, social and environmental progress to the rest of the world' (President Barroso [2]). More specifically, in its 2007 ETAP Report, the Commission requires nothing less than making ‘eco-innovation pervasive across all industries' (p. 3). Eco-innovation should become ‘the mainstream of Europe's innovations and the required norm across the whole economy' [3].

One of the first EU-funded (FP6) research initiatives explicitely focussing on eco-innovation was the project titled 'Measuring Eco-Innovation' (MEI). This project has defined eco-innovation as 'the production, assimilation or exploitation of a product, production process, service or management or business method that is novel to the organisation (developing or adopting it) and which results, throughout its life cycle, in a reduction of environmental risk, pollution and other negative impacts of resources use (including energy use) compared to relevant alternatives' [4].


Eco-innovations have a clear potential for strengthening Europe's global competitiveness, especially through a massive focus on increasing resource productivity.


Promoting eco-innovation across sectors and across society

This de-materialisation process may foster Europe's competitiveness and help meet the Lisbon objectives, but ONLY IF eco-innovations are promoted massively across all sectors of the economy, and therefore across all panels of the Europe INNOVA project. This in turn requires a cross-sectoral strategy for raising awareness and building knowledge resources on eco-innovation. All citizens - and not just the consumers - are potential actors of the de-materialisation: this strategy should also be implemented across social levels.

Recommendations

From this we derive the following recommendations to be taken into account in further discussions of all Europe INNOVA innovation panels:

  1. All innovations, in all sectors of the economy, should integrate the need to increase the productivity of natural resource use. Public support to innovators failing this integration should be questioned.
  2. The logic of public support for innovation should include different calculations of the cost of innovation. Hence, public policies should support eco-innovation taking into account its integrated cost, which implies that even if innovation is not cost effective under the current market price regime, it will become profitable under a regime that integrates the need to dematerialise (or the cost of materialisation).
  3. Mainstreaming eco-innovation requires a knowledge and learning resource base (such as e-skills). Europe INNOVA could contribute to this resource base through an adequate inventory of knowledge / learning gaps, good practices and opportunities in each sector / panel of the Europe INNOVA project.
  4. This inventory could help design specific learning tools (documentaries, interactive e-modules, etc) adapted to the specific situations within each sector of the economy.

 

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Notes

[1] F. Schmidt-Bleek, 2004; Der oekologische Rucksack, Hirzel.
[2] p. 3 in: Working together for growth and jobs. A new start for the Lisbon Strategy; Communication from President Barroso to the Spring European Council, 02 Feb. 2005 (COM(2005)24). (download)
[3] p. 5 in: Report of the Environmental Technologies Action Plan (2005-2006); COM(2007) 162 final (02 May 2007). Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. (download)
[4] this definition results from the MEI project (final report p. 7): Measuring Eco-Innovation (FP6).

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