What is eco-innovation?

The scale of environmental problems, coupled with social inequalities and competitiveness challenges within the global economy, have raised increasing awareness of the need to change and renew existing technological production and social behavioural patterns. At best, such awareness may produce innovative responses that gradually move society along a more sustainable path. Analytical tools for such transformation have been developed in the field of environmental management, namely within frameworks such as eco-efficiency,1 industrial ecology2 and design for environment3 and more recently within the concept of eco-effectiveness,4 natural capital and biomimicry.5 Furthermore, the urgency for change has led to increasing application of the term ‘innovation’ in environmental management and policy. Despite the promise of eco-innovations, the term is also used in diverse contexts with different underlying connotations that may eventually diminish its practical value. Most commonly eco-innovation refers to new technologies that improve economic and environmental performance but also some definitions include organizational and social changes for improving competitiveness and sustainability and its social, economic and environmental pillars (see Box 2.1).

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