Suchergebnisse

This article focuses on the export of environmental technology by publicly-owned companies. The export of such technologies has the potential to contribute to economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability. However, research on this emerging topic has so far largely focused on privately-owned SMEs compared to publicly-owned companies. Using interviews with twelve Swedish municipally-owned companies which develop such systems and a survey with thirty-six others, we analyse their approaches, drivers for and obstacles to export. These companies use a combination of different approaches such as subsidiaries, independent projects, licensing and private-public partnerships to engage in export. However, in contrast to private companies which are often driven by internal factors such as extra sales, these municipally-owned companies are largely motivated by external factors such as customer requests and opportunities to contribute to environmental sustainability. Furthermore, their main export barriers relate to differences between the business culture and political systems in their home and target markets. Their export experiences are influenced by their municipal ownership, the types of technologies they develop and the institutional contexts within which they operate. This study reveals an actor type struggling to find a balance between domestic obligations and commercialization in international markets. ; Funding agencies: Tekniska Verkens Industrial Ecology Research Programme under the BMEX project (Business Models for Market Expansion of Swedish Municipal Companies)

E-waste includes components with economic and environmental importance, thus the need for their sound end-of-life management. This study provides fundamentals regarding the amounts, flows, and handling practices of e-waste in Gaborone, Botswana. A number of relevant stakeholder organisations were interviewed and an in situ waste composition study was conducted. The concentration of e-waste arriving at the municipal landfill is less than 1 weight per cent, corresponding to about 1.9 kg/capita/year, far less compared to the estimated 8 weight per cent for European Union countries. However, obsolete electr(on)ics are in urban storages primarily due to a lack of tapping mechanisms. Among several inadequacies of the current handling practices is the absence of an e-waste management framework. Improvement routes discussed include public sensitisation and engagement, capacity building, and future exploitation of potentially suitable end-of-life treatment options including the novel phenomenon of enhanced landfill mining. ; GTARS

E-waste includes components with economic and environmental importance, thus the need for their sound end-of-life management. This study provides fundamentals regarding the amounts, flows, and handling practices of e-waste in Gaborone, Botswana. A number of relevant stakeholder organisations were interviewed and an in situ waste composition study was conducted. The concentration of e-waste arriving at the municipal landfill is less than 1 weight per cent, corresponding to about 1.9 kg/capita/year, far less compared to the estimated 8 weight per cent for European Union countries. However, obsolete electr(on)ics are in urban storages primarily due to a lack of tapping mechanisms. Among several inadequacies of the current handling practices is the absence of an e-waste management framework. Improvement routes discussed include public sensitisation and engagement, capacity building, and future exploitation of potentially suitable end-of-life treatment options including the novel phenomenon of enhanced landfill mining. ; GTARS

The literature on intermediaries faces challenges regarding how to conceptualise and empirically demonstrate the system-level impact of intermediaries. Thus, researchers and policy analysts may experience difficulties in grasping the potential contributions of intermediaries beyond individual projects and firms to aggregate levels of an innovation system. This article combines innovation intermediary and technological innovation systems literature to develop fundamentals of an approach for analysing how organisations acting as intermediaries support firms in eco-innovation and potentially contribute to technological innovation system functions. The operationalisation of the analytical approach is illustrated using case studies on a total of eight support organisations acting as intermediaries in the region of Scania, Sweden and North Rhine Westphalia, Germany. For researchers and policy analysts, the analytical approach presented in this article offers the opportunity for a step-by-step, comprehensive and transparent analysis of different types of intermediaries, their roles, and potential contributions to innovation system functions. ; Funding agencies: Formas (The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning) through ECO-INOVERA project "SHIFT"; European Union Regional Development fund through the lnterreg project "SUPER" ; SUPER

Policy mixes are needed to overcome the different barriers hindering sustainability transitions. This creates the need for policy coherence. Policy coherence studies in sustainability transitions literature are dominated by European cases, limiting their generalizability. This article analyzes policy mixes related to biogas systems and their related coherence issues, and, how that influences biogas production and use in Brazil. We identified policy coherence within and between biogas related sectors and over time, showing how the pre-conditions for biogas production, distribution and use differ considerably between the Brazilian states. This points to a need for decentralized governance structures to enable policy differentiation, as a complement to policy coherence. The article concludes that the characteristics of biogas systems as being locally embedded constitutes a challenge in hierarchical market economies such as Brazil, where policy development, resource mobilization and allocation are highly centralized. ; Funding Agencies: Swedish Biogas Research Center (BRC) - Swedish Energy Agency [35624-3]