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Concept
Eco-innovation
Summary
Eco-innovation is the development of products and processes that contribute to sustainable development, applying the commercial application of knowledge to elicit direct or indirect ecological improvements. This includes a range of related ideas, from environmentally friendly technological advances to socially acceptable innovative paths towards sustainability. The field of research that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new "ecological" ideas and technology spread is called eco-innovation diffusion.
The idea of eco-innovation is fairly recent. One of the first appearances in the literature was in a 1996 book by Claude Fussler and Peter James. In a subsequent article in 1997, Peter James defined eco-innovation as "new products and processes which provide customer and business value but significantly decrease environmental impacts". Klaus Rennings employs the term eco-innovation to describe three kinds of changes related to sustainable development: technological, social and institutional innovation.
Eco-innovation is sometimes called "environmental innovation", and is often linked with environmental technology, eco-efficiency, eco-design, environmental design, sustainable design, or sustainable innovation. While the term "environmental innovation" is used in similar contexts to "eco-innovation", the other terms are mostly used when referring to product or process design, and when the focus is more on the technological aspects of eco-innovation rather than the societal and political aspects. Ecovation is the process by which business adopts ecological innovation to create products which have a generative nature and are recyclable.
The most common usage of the term "eco-innovation" is to refer to innovative products and processes that reduce environmental impacts, whether the main motivation for their development or deployment is environmental or not. This is often used in conjunction with eco-efficiency and eco-design. Leaders in many industries have been developing innovative technologies in order to work towards sustainability.
Official source
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