Approaches of eco-innovation: Uncertainty assessment and the integration of green technology foresight and life cycle assessment as a policy tool

The perspective of eco-innovation is gaining increasing attention in European policy development as well as in a number of individual countries. As basis for this lies the acknowledgement that we on the one hand live in a technology andinnovation-oriented society and that some new technologies embed environmental opportunities.

On the other hand, that technology is usually a double-edged sword not only offering new opportunities but also centrally involved in creation of newenvironmental hazards and problems in connection with the emergence of new socio-technical systems, new production/consumption patterns etc. Thus it is recognized that conventional innovation systems are not geared towards sustainability and often showsenvironmentally problematic and that changes in the traditions of innovation are needed.

This paper addresses principles of eco-innovation and suggestions of how eco-innovation in practice is made operational. A key issue in eco-innovation is to improveassessments and discussions of uncertainties and new environmental risks in connection with innovative technology developments. Approaches to this have as support for policy development processes been combined with environmentally oriented technologyforesight methods integrated with the perspective of life cycle assessments of new technologies.

The paper describes a number of examples of these approaches and discusses further perspectives for an eco-innovation policy.