Environmental Innovation and Ecodesign: Certainties and Controversies

By Romain Debref

The end of the post-war economic boom was marked by the recognition of the environmental problem with the oil crises of the 1970s and, in 1972, the first major UN conference devoted to the human environment. Successive international meetings have resulted in a context where technical change, innovation and industry have assumed a central place in the creation of a new model of society.

Against this consensus, the author demonstrates from economic analysis and wide-ranging examples that the environmental innovation doctrine and ecodesign methods remain fragile and can lead to paradoxical results.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781119544067

Book preview

Table of Contents

Cover

Foreword

Introduction

I.1. The mysterious paradigm of sustainable development

I.2. A deus ex machina or when the key to the enigma is through technological progress

I.3. A doctrine of eco-innovation?

I.4. Moving towards a critical analysis of the process of environmental innovation

1 Environmental Innovation: A Controversial Doctrine

1.1. Progressive conceptualization of environmental innovation: a journey back through 40 years of controversies

1.2. Critical analysis of the typology of environmental innovations

1.3. Drivers of environmental innovation in the face of institutional tensions

1.4. Conclusion

2 Ecodesign and Technological Change: A Missed Opportunity?

2.1. Ecodesign and the dispute over methods

2.2. The main determining factors of ecodesign

2.3. Product life cycle analysis: a limited tool for decision-making in the face of complexity

2.4. Ecodesign confronted with environmental and economic problems

2.5. Conclusion

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Tables

1 Environmental Innovation: A Controversial Doctrine

Table 1.1. Expenditure on measures for the reduction of pollution in the manufacturing sector in the United States, according to reduction method, 1980–1994, in millions of USD

Table 1.2. Ranking of countries making the greatest and least effort in terms of environmental innovations

Table 1.3. Typology of the degrees of change

Table 1.4. Innovations confronted with uncertainties

Table 1.5. Industrial symbioses around the world

Table 1.6. The six rebound effects which limit the scope of eco-efficiency (adapted from Polimeni et al. [POL 08])

Table 1.7. Political trajectories to reduce the rebound effect according to the type of instrument and the general strategy

2 Ecodesign and Technological Change: A Missed Opportunity?

Table 2.1. The principles of innovative design

Table 2.2. Evolution of ISO 14001 standards per continent [ISO 17]

Table 2.3. The various worlds

Table 2.4. Short-term and long-term confrontation between the identity of objects with an environmental vocation

Appendix

Table A.1. Responsible Care and UIC (French chemical industries trade union): principles, objectives, and solutions

Table A.2. Development of the referenced organizations which adopted the EMAS standard between 2005 and 2015 within the European Union and countries which are a driving force (Eurostat [EUR 18c], reference: tsdpc410)

Table A.3. Development of the referenced production sites which have adopted the EMAS standard between 2005 and 2015 within the European Union and countries which are a driving force (Eurostat [EUR 18c], reference: tsdpc410)

Table A.4. Development of the number of companies referenced as ISO 9001, 14001 and EMAS (organization and site) between 1993 and 2015 within the European Union (Eurostat [EUR 18c], reference: tsdpc410; ISO [ISO 17])

Table A.5. Correlation coefficient of the number of companies referenced as ISO 9001, 14001 and EMAS (organization and site) between 1993 and 2015 within the European Union (Eurostat [EUR 18c], reference: tsdpc410; ISO [ISO 17])

Table A.6. Classification of ecodesign tools and techniques, which is hierarchized depending on their ease of application (taken from Knight and Jenkins, [KNI 09, p. 553]; adapted from Revéret and Gendron [GEN 10] and Grisel and Duranthon [GRI 01, pp. 40–58]; compiled by the current author)

List of Illustrations

1 Environmental Innovation: A Controversial Doctrine

Figure 1.1. Quadrants of the private and social benefits of innovation compared to the status quo

Figure 1.2. Example of a composite index of environmental innovation for France in 2015

Figure 1.3. Total investment in end-of-pipe technologies in the European Union

Figure 1.4. Comparison of the total investments between end-of-pipe and integrated technologies within the European Union

Figure 1.5. Typology of industrial ecosystems

Figure 1.6. Environmental technologies and circular flows

Figure 1.7. Many industrial ecosystem installations operate in France (according to the Orée report, Lavoisy [LAV 16], compiled by the current author)

Figure 1.8. Evolution of products certified as cradle-to-cradle and those in the process of being certified, between 2013 and 2017, as a function of their degree of change (compiled by the current author using data from http://www.c2ccertified.org, consulted in 2013 and 2017, Debref [DEB 14])

Figure 1.9. Index of the productivity of raw materials and accounting of material flows in the European Union, for the 28-member states between 2000 and 2016, base 100 year = 2000

Figure 1.10. The approach in terms of a multi-level perspective

Figure 1.11. Drivers of environmental innovations according to Becher et al. [BEC 90]

Figure 1.12. Technological trajectories of environmental innovation

Figure 1.13. Consumption of domestic products and GDP per country (annual average growth rate 2000–2007)

2 Ecodesign and Technological Change: A Missed Opportunity?

Figure 2.1. Mobilization of ecodesign actors

Figure 2.2. Operation of the ISO 9001 certification

Figure 2.3. Evolution of EMAS accreditations since 2005 in the European Union

Figure 2.4. Comparison of the number of ISO 9001, 14001 and EMAS accreditations in Europe (data compiled by ISO and Eurostat, reference: tsdpc410)

Figure 2.5. The activity sectors closest to the overall evolution of adoption of the ISO 14001 standard

Figure 2.6. Evolution of European Ecolabel licenses granted during the decade 2000–2010, within 27-state Europe

Figure 2.7. The principles of product declaration suitable for ecodesign (taken from Jacquot [JAC 12])

Figure 2.8. The main principles of establishment of LCA

Smart Innovation Set

coordinated by

Dimitri Uzunidis

Volume 17

Environmental Innovation and Ecodesign

Certainties and Controversies

Romain Debref

First published 2018 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

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The rights of Romain Debref to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018940373

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78630-238-0

Foreword

It is clear that, today, technological innovation is at the heart of the problem which aims to reconcile the quest for well-being with protection of the environment. This debate is nothing new, as Romain Debref reminds us. To project ourselves into the contemporary era, we must go back to the controversy broached by the first report of the Club of Rome [MEA 72].

We probably do not emphasize enough the fact that the Club of Rome, which requested this report, was codirected at the time by Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King, who is director for the department of science and technology at the OECD. Dominique Pestre [PES 14] talked about the mother of all battles which was being played out at the time in the corridors of the OECD between, on the one hand, the management of science and technology which had invented the question of the environment within this institution and aimed to protect and re-establish it, and, on the other hand, its management of economic affairs which implies not treating this question of the environment head-on, but integrating it into traditional economic problems and policies. When the Meadows report was published, and the Stockholm Conference was held, the OECD Council [OEC 72] thus adopted, in a recommendation to governments, the polluter pays principle which aimed to integrate environmental policies with the question of economic growth and international trade [GOD 15, p. 270].

We should also remember that one of the answers to the alarm call sounded by the Meadows team and the Club of Rome was the foresight exercise carried out by Herman Kahn¹ and the Hudson Institute [KAH 76]. This book, published at the time of the 200th anniversary of the United States, presented a summary of the work carried out by this group of North-American futurists, and offered an analysis which was to be used to draw up a unique scenario on a global scale for the next two hundred years. It outlines both a rupture and a continuity: on the one hand, the authors tell us, it is a case of breaking with the past two centuries, characterized by an industrialization which cares little for the environment and for the exhaustion of natural resources; and on the other hand, futurists assure us, if we want to achieve this objective, we should place full confidence in the driving forces of science and technology [BON 09]. While Kahn and his colleagues recognize that an unbridled economy is not sustainable, they make a call for reasonable economic growth. Their arguments are the same as those put forward by standard economists about growth: from the point of view of supply, the increase in prices of resources which are becoming rarer will make substitution resources, or those which are more difficult to access, more attractive; and from the point of view of demand, requirements will stabilize, even decrease, due to rationalization of production and consumption processes, generalization of recycling, and the evolution of behaviors in post-industrial societies. A Great Transition was thus proposed by Kahn and his colleagues [KAH 76, p. 19], illustrated by a magnificent logarithmic curve drawn between 1776 and 2076, with a world population increasing from 750 million to 15 billion individuals and a gross world product increasing from 150 billion dollars (i.e. 200 dollars per head) to 300,000 billion (i.e. 20,000 dollars per head). They write that The scenario presented, elaborated, and tested in this book can be summarized with the general statement that 200 years ago almost everywhere human beings were comparatively few, poor and at the mercy of the forces of nature, and 200 years from now, we expect, almost everywhere they will be numerous, rich and in control of the forces of nature. [KAH 76, p. 1] As Élodie Vieille Blanchard reminded us [VIE 11, p. 518], the only true problem that this now-satisfied mankind will have to face up to is… managing its boredom!

The ecological transition, as Romain Debref reminds us, is also the foresight developed at the same time, on a more theoretical basis, by Neo-Schumpeterian, evolutionist economists, and specialists in technological innovation, on whose front bench researchers from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex are to be found, who themselves also participated in the controversy launched by the first report at the Club of Rome [COL 73].

The ecological transition has become established in recent years to identify the issues at hand and the solutions that aim to bring together economic, social, and environmental movements. The idea that a new Industrial Revolution is at work (see, for example, Rifkin [RIF 12]) or is to come has today become unremarkable as a basis for this view. For this reason, Romain Debref’s work, taken from the first part of his doctoral thesis [DEB 14], should be read with great interest for his appraisal of the historical situation and the critical thinking that he deploys with regard to debates arising from the notions of environmental innovation and eco-design, which are at the heart of this vision of the ecological transition and the policies and strategies accompanying it.

Franck-Dominique VIVIEN

REGARDS Laboratory

Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France

[e-mail]

1 For information, H. Kahn was, with von Braun, one of Stanley Kubrick’s muses for his character Dr. Strangelove in his film Doctor Strangelove or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb (1964).

Introduction

The revolutionary view that economic activity is an extension of man’s biological evolution, is an impressive achievement. (Georgescu-Roegen N., The Entropy Law and the Economic Process [GEO 71])

I.1. The mysterious paradigm of sustainable development

Since the end of the Second World War, a considerable increase in the power of science and a formidable acceleration in technological progress have been observed. Use of the atom, the conquest of space, and understanding of the human genome, to cite only a few, bear witness to these new frontiers of knowledge and power which have been explored by mankind for the last few decades. This movement is mobilizing governments, catching the interest of industry leaders, and stoking the fires of hope among citizens and consumers who are looking for a better way of life. As a kind of flip side, the end of The Glorious Thirty era in France is also marked by recognition of the problem of the environment. The first large UN conference dedicated to the human environment, which took place in Stockholm in 1972, bears witness to this, in a context where "thinking about the future has become fashionable in recent years, with particular emphasis on ‘doom watching’ [COL 73, p. v, §2].

The following decade of mobilization intended to profoundly modify an industrial society committed to what appeared to be a frantic race. In a context marked by the Cold War and the increase in power of the Third World, the United Nations Environment Program, which was created as a result of the Stockholm Conference, gave a reminder of the responsibility of the great world powers in terms of the environment, insisting on the fact that only political means and concertation would lead to establishment of a new model of society¹. During the 1970s and 1980s, proposals for ecodevelopment, upheld in particular by Ignacy Sachs², were those favored by international institutions to give body to this perspective. Three dimensions form the basis of eco-development: independent decisions, equitable consideration of requirements, and ecological prudence [SAC 93, p. 14]. But soon, a different watchword was to emerge.

In 1983, after the evident failure of the Nairobi Summit (Stockholm+10), the UN World Commission on Environment and Development was created, presided over by Gro Harlem Brundtland. After five years of work, this commission published the report entitled Our common future [WCE 87], in which it proposed a new concept – sustainable development – to reconcile the concerns of development and environmental protection. We know that there is no lack of definitions for this. For example, we take particular note of this one: Sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs [WCE 87, pp. 10–11]. Concerns no longer only focus on exhaustion of natural resources, energy crises, or elimination of certain chemicals; it is above all a question of overall modification of the approach taken in that era of development. However, despite the spate of definitions pertaining to it, it must be noted that sustainable development is an enigma [THE 01, VIV 07]: it is a normative principle without regulations, at least not explicit or in agreement.

This has not prevented the call to general mobilization, contained within the Brundtland report, from being heard. The first Rio de Janeiro Summit in 1992 opened its doors to an unexpected number of politicians, NGOs, and industry leaders. All three of the latter met together during this event under the framework of the Business Council for Sustainable Development directed by the businessman Stephan Schmidheiny [SCH 92]. This increase in power of the business world was to continue throughout the following decade. From this point of view, the Johannesburg Summit, organized in 2002, was a definite turning point [VIV 05, p. 27], with, on the one hand, official recognition of the translation of sustainable development to management practices – the well-known three pillars of sustainable development, which are an adaptation of Elkington’s triple bottom line [ELK 98] – and, on the other hand, type II initiatives, public–private partnerships, which are the essence of the new commitments which favor sustainable development. These are disparate measures, based on voluntary commitments, most often without evaluation procedures, and which, for the most part, can be assimilated to promotional actions [VIV 05, p. 27].

Around 20 years after the first Earth Summit was held, would it be that the enigma of sustainable development is in the process of being resolved? We would almost be tempted to believe this, so strong has the enthusiasm for green growth been since the organization of Rio+20 [DAM 12]. In a context marked by the international financial crisis, a new increase in oil prices, and the rise in mass unemployment, this new form of growth is perceived as a remedy for past damage and as a promise of economic development which generates employment, has less environmental impact, and involves more equitable sharing. This green growth, which must allow certain sectors of activity to be set on the path to sustainable development, gives prominence to technological innovation [VIV 13].

I.2. A deus ex machina or when the key to the enigma is through technological progress

Such remarks are nothing new. Since the beginning of the 1970s, emphasis has effectively been placed on the possibilities offered by science and technology for resolution of the ecological crisis. Certainly, authors such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen³ [GEO 71] or Denis Meadows and his colleagues at MIT [MEA 72] have hardly any confidence in the latter to respond to the problem of limits to growth that they draw up. This leads the first to foresee a degrowth over time [GEO 75] and the second to refer to a static state, a perspective dear to John Stuart Mill and brought up to date by Herman Daly [VIV 05, p. 8]. However, the criticisms directed at pioneers of the ecological economy on the one hand, and the first report submitted to the Club of Rome on the other hand, point out the pessimism of these authors. This is particularly the case for those emanating from researchers at the University of Sussex, with front row seats occupied by Christopher Freeman and Keith Pavitt, the fathers of the Neo-Schumpeterian theory. In their publication Thinking about the Future: A Critique of Limits to Growth [COL 73], they begin by recognizing the quality of the work done by the Meadows team. Nevertheless, the debate around growth versus no growth has been, in their eyes, surpassed, because the problems that must be tackled come from the determining factors which influence the aforementioned growth⁴. The chosen direction of technological change and the implemented type of innovation are targeted. The team from the University of Sussex believes that modification of production means will be made possible by the transition of ordinary technologies to technologies that are necessary for pollution controls [COL 73, p. 155].

This