Bücher der Reihe Sustainability and Innovation

Increased ecological awareness and the growing scarcity of resources have led to the introduction of new environmental standards, triggering enterprises, regions, and even countries to adopt new business models and industrial reconversion approaches. However, despite increased interest in business models and their innovation, it still lacks the integration of circularity and sustainability and to date research on these areas is still limited. This book, therefore, provides readers with a closer picture of the issues of business models and their innovation for the circular economy in Europe, where the issues of sustainability and the shift towards the circular economy have become cornerstones of European policies and documents and where significant differences have been identified between firms and countries. This book provides a unique view of different European perspectives and enables the reader to compare the situation in countries with completely different historical and economic conditions as well as with different perceptions of the need for the actions leading to the sustainable development and to the shift towards the circular economy.

Building on the European Commission (EU) funded research project "Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for the Assessment and Management of Sustainable innovation" (CASI), it presents tools for assessing and managing sustainable innovation, and reflects on SI-related policies as well as citizens' aspirations.

As societies face the challenge of securing an efficient and environmentally sound energy supply, researchers have strived to determine the future development of energy consumption, infrastructure and technology endowment. This book proposes a new agent-based approach to studying the development of urban energy systems.

The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2005 marks a first step towards meting global climate targets, but more ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is needed after 2012, when the Kyoto targets expire.

Case studies on micro cogeneration, carbon capture and storage, consumer feedback, network regulation and emissions trading provide insights into innovation dynamics in the electricity system and are analyzed to derive strategic implications for innovation policies.

Rather, ecological economics, founded at the end of the 1980s as an attempt to combine social and natural s- ence approaches(in particular economics and ecology) to study especially long-run environmental problems in an encompassing manner, has mainly developed into an interdisciplinary research forum on environmental-economicissues.

This book provides an interdisciplinary account of how technological advances - mainly in the domains of energy and transportation - contribute to the transformation towards a more sustainable economic system.

A broad range of topics are addressed, including a bibliometric analysis of eco-innovation research, the relationship between eco-innovation and corporate sustainability, eco-innovation system analysis, new evidence on the economic effects of eco-innovation, and the relevance of policy and policy mixes for eco-innovation activities.

A broad range of topics are addressed, including a bibliometric analysis of eco-innovation research, the relationship between eco-innovation and corporate sustainability, eco-innovation system analysis, new evidence on the economic effects of eco-innovation, and the relevance of policy and policy mixes for eco-innovation activities.

Demands for sustainability policies have set new challenges for business both on the individual firm level and on the level of organized business interests.

This book focuses on sustainability innovations in renewable energies, combined heat and power, and energy service contracting, and analyses the institutions, actors and functions within the innovation system.

Formulating effective responses to the global challenges of mitigating climate change and securing a sustainable energy future requires a clear understanding of the interdependent causalities between institutions, local decision making, strategic alliances and eco-innovations, as well as policies.

This book focuses on sustainability innovations in renewable energies, combined heat and power, and energy service contracting, and analyses the institutions, actors and functions within the innovation system.

Contains eight articles together with comments by twenty authors and discussants on the topic of innovations and sustainability. This volume provides an insight into the relation between innovations and sustainability from the perspective of evolutionary economics.

Material flow management offers enterprises a high potential for realizing new economic competitive advantages. This book summarises the fundamental concepts and tools of material flow management, and presents contemporary methods and findings.

Formulating effective responses to the global challenges of mitigating climate change and securing a sustainable energy future requires a clear understanding of the interdependent causalities between institutions, local decision making, strategic alliances and eco-innovations, as well as policies.

A comprehensive framework for an indicator system is established that allows to include different environmental innovation fields such as process innovations in the steel production, substitution of dangerous chemicals, organisational innovations in the field of waste disposal or sustainable water management.