Connecting the Digital and the Ecological Transitions

A joint OECD/European Commission/Nordic Innovation research project and workshop:

Green growth means fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. However, existing production technology and consumer behaviour can only be expected to produce positive outcomes up to a point.

Innovation pushes the frontier of green solutions outward and can help to decouple growth from natural capital depletion. Innovation will also lead to new ideas, new entrepreneurs and new business models, thus contributing to the establishment of new markets and eventually to the creation of new jobs and industrial transformation. Leading firms and entrepreneurs are exploring green business opportunities, sometimes based on systemic thinking and radical innovations, aiming to capture and create value from new business models. Policy makers are also increasingly paying attention to the need for radical and systemic eco-innovations as a powerful lever in enabling a long-term transition and transformation towards a greener economy.

The new EU Eco-Innovation Action Plan takes into account “business model eco-innovation” as a new important area for promoting eco-innovation, while the EU Sustainable Consumption and Production and Sustainable Industrial Policy (SCP/SIP) Action Plan is under review with a consideration of integrating this new development.

Since eco-innovation and the resulting new business models are still relatively new to industry and policy makers alike, a better knowledge and understanding of emerging practices is needed to enable government to elaborate appropriate policies and to encourage industry to take up new opportunities. This workshop aimed to showcase good practices of radical and systemic eco-innovations and enhance understanding of the role that new business models can play, and has also drawn lessons for industry and policy makers to accelerate the deployment and diffusion of promising environmental technologies and solutions.