Creation, diffusion and impact of sustainability innovations

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Project period: 01.04.2007 - 31.3.2010

The guiding principle of sustainability demands long-term and far-reaching changes in technology, infrastructures, lifestyles and institutions. Innovations and their diffusion are expected to provide vital stimulus for managing sustainability. Economic and sociological research conducted in this thematic field in Germany to date still exhibits a number of key deficits: For example, various interesting concepts continue to exist side-by-side but largely isolated from and unconnected to one another. Further, the connection between the development of economic theories and their empirical implementation is still relatively loose.

This project will use methods of modern micro-econometrics and spatial econometrics to analyse the spatial, temporal, structural and political implications of sustainability innovations. Extensive company surveys will be conducted for this purpose. Cross-industry surveys will first be conducted in Germany. These will then be followed by sector-specific, cross-border surveys. Using special econometric methods, the project will differentiate between environmentally innovative enterprises and enterprises that are not environmentally innovative. Taking into account the endogeneity of the decisions to develop environmental innovations will be of particular importance here. Only after this has been done will it be possible to conduct an informative impact analysis of the different types of companies with respect to their environmental-economic performance.  

 

Further information is available on the project website .

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