مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

In October 2014, the European Council set a new climate change mitigation target of a 40% cut in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for 2030 with respect to 1990 levels (EUCO, 2014). This adds to the already binding 20% cut to be reached by 2020 and has the purpose of helping the EU meet the more stringent goals proposed for 2050. The EU also led the way in the effort to conclude the “first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal” that established a 1.5 °C threshold increase in global temperatures (Paris Agreement COP21). The challenge is to combine competitiveness with decarbonisation to meet these targets (Fankhauser et al., 2008).

The path to decarbonisation needs to be characterised by a portfolio of actions in which innovation compensates for the economy-scale effects on emissions, namely, GDP and population growth (EEA, 2014). Consequently, changes to the energy mix, greater energy efficiency and other incremental and radical solutions are required (McGlade and Ekins, 2015). Furthermore, technological, organisational and behavioural innovations are increasingly important (Costantini and Mazzanti, 2013; van den Bergh, 2007; Edenhofer et al., 2012), and environmental innovations, or eco-innovation (EI),1 represent a crucial component of techno-organisational change (Jaffe et al., 1995).

The 2020 EU target (a 20% reduction in emissions) seems to be achievable, but this is partly due to the EU’s ongoing scenario of low economic growth, very high unemployment and deflation. This challenge is linked to another issue that tends to be overlooked: the (non-binding) EU strategy established in 2012 to move from a 16% share of manufacturing to 20% (of GDP) by 2020 (EC, 2010). This in turn suggests that environmental and economic targets should be integrated. In the short term, re-manufacturing might increase direct emissions, but at the same time, manufacturing is more (eco-) innovative than services (Cainelli and Mazzanti, 2013; Gilli et al., 2013).