Employment impacts of cleaner production – evidence from a German study using case studies and surveys

Friedhelm Pfeiffer and Klaus Rennings

Business Strategy and the Environment, 2001, vol. 10, issue 3, 161-175

Abstract: The study assesses net employment effects of technical progress, which can be expected by the ongoing transition from end‐of‐pipe technologies towards cleaner production. Empirical evidence is presented on the basis of case studies and firm data including a telephone survey from German industry. The main result is that the transition from end‐of‐pipe technologies to cleaner production leads to a net creation of jobs, which is however restricted to a only small number of firms and to the group of highly skilled labour. Eco‐innovations, like other innovations, are non‐neutral. The demand for skilled and highly skilled labour rises while the demand for unskilled labour decreases. Synergies between environmental, labour market and innovation policy are apparent but they are however small and specific. The exploitation of these synergies requires the design of specific policy programmes differentiating between types of eco‐innovation. The promotion of product‐integrated environmental measures should be more successful if new products complement older ones, while process‐integrated environmental measures should be more successful if consumers' demand is more price elastic. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

Date: 2001
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Working Paper: Employment impacts of cleaner production: evidence from a German study using case studies and surveys (1999)
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