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Governments in countries across the world increasingly adopt the "green growth" discourse to underline their ambition for the greening of their economies. The central tenet of this narrative is the economic opportunities rather than challenges arising from the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Our paper synthesises insights from 113 recent scientific articles, dealing with both environmental issues and economic growth, as well as innovation. Our ambition is exploratory in attempting to take stock of heterogeneous contributions across the spectrum of social science. The articles have been reviewed with a focus on six themes, derived from current discussions in economic geography and transition studies: skills, technology, physical resources, markets, institutions and policies. Four major implications emerge from the review. First, green growth requires competences that allow for handling complex, non-routine situations – in both the private and the public sector. Second, technological progress should be directed towards greener technologies, to avoid investments funds being channelled to brown technologies for short-term returns. Third, our knowledge of the opportunities for achieving green growth must base upon a joint assessment of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures. Finally, greater attention should be devoted to the geography of green growth processes at different scales. ; publishedVersion

Governments in countries across the world increasingly adopt the "green growth" discourse to underline their ambition for the greening of their economies. The central tenet of this narrative is the economic opportunities rather than challenges arising from the pursuit of environmental sustainability. Our paper synthesises insights from 113 recent scientific articles, dealing with both environmental issues and economic growth, as well as innovation. Our ambition is exploratory in attempting to take stock of heterogeneous contributions across the spectrum of social science. The articles have been reviewed with a focus on six themes, derived from current discussions in economic geography and transition studies: skills, technology, physical resources, markets, institutions and policies. Four major implications emerge from the review. First, green growth requires competences that allow for handling complex, non-routine situations – in both the private and the public sector. Second, technological progress should be directed towards greener technologies, to avoid investments funds being channelled to brown technologies for short-term returns. Third, our knowledge of the opportunities for achieving green growth must base upon a joint assessment of market failures, structural system failures and transformational system failures. Finally, greater attention should be devoted to the geography of green growth processes at different scales. ; publishedVersion

The question of how regions and nations develop new sources of industrial growth is of recurring interest in economic geography and planning studies. From an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) perspective, new growth paths emerge out of existing economic activities and their associated assets and conditions. In response to the micro-economic and endogenous focus of much EEG research, this paper utilises a broader evolutionary perspective on path creation which stresses the dynamic interplay between four sets of factors: regional assets; key economic and organisational actors; mechanisms of path creation; and multi-scalar institutional environments and policy initiatives. Reflecting the importance of extra-regional networks and institutions, this framework is also informed by the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, which highlights the process of strategic coupling between firms and regions and its political and institutional mediation by state institutions at different spatial scales. We deploy this framework to investigate regional path creation in the context of renewable energy technologies, focusing specifically on the offshore wind industry. We adopt a comparative cross-national approach, examining the evolution of offshore wind in Germany, the UK and Norway. Of the three cases, Germany has developed the most deep-rooted and holistic path to date, characterised by leading roles in both deployment and manufacturing. By contrast, path creation in the UK and Norway has evolved in more partial and selective ways. The UK's growth path is developing in a relatively shallow manner, based largely upon deployment and 'outside in' investment, whilst Norway's path is emerging in an exogenous, 'inside-out' fashion around a fairly confined set of actors and deployment and supply functions. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the important role of national states in orchestrating the strategic coupling of regional and national assets to particular mechanisms of path creation. ; Path creation, global production networks and regional development: A comparative international analysis of the offshore wind sector ; The question of how regions and nations develop new sources of industrial growth is of recurring interest in economic geography and planning studies. From an evolutionary economic geography (EEG) perspective, new growth paths emerge out of existing economic activities and their associated assets and conditions. In response to the micro-economic and endogenous focus of much EEG research, this paper utilises a broader evolutionary perspective on path creation which stresses the dynamic interplay between four sets of factors: regional assets; key economic and organisational actors; mechanisms of path creation; and multi-scalar institutional environments and policy initiatives. Reflecting the importance of extra-regional networks and institutions, this framework is also informed by the Global Production Networks (GPN) approach, which highlights the process of strategic coupling between firms and regions and its political and institutional mediation by state institutions at different spatial scales. We deploy this framework to investigate regional path creation in the context of renewable energy technologies, focusing specifically on the offshore wind industry. We adopt a comparative cross-national approach, examining the evolution of offshore wind in Germany, the UK and Norway. Of the three cases, Germany has developed the most deep-rooted and holistic path to date, characterised by leading roles in both deployment and manufacturing. By contrast, path creation in the UK and Norway has evolved in more partial and selective ways. The UK's growth path is developing in a relatively shallow manner, based largely upon deployment and 'outside in' investment, whilst Norway's path is emerging in an exogenous, 'inside-out' fashion around a fairly confined set of actors and deployment and supply functions. In conclusion, the paper emphasises the important role of national states in orchestrating the strategic coupling of regional and national assets to particular mechanisms of path creation.