Windfall gains or eco-innovation? ‘Green’ evolution in the Swedish innovation system

Max Rånge and Mikael Sandberg ()
Additional contact information
Max Rånge: University of Halmstad
Mikael Sandberg: University of Halmstad

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, 2016, vol. 18, issue 2, No 7, 229-246

Abstract: Abstract This paper therefore looks closer into climate gas emission and the shift to non-fossil energy in Sweden. What types of organizations are behind the shift to non-fossil energy use, what are the relative effects on emissions, to what extent can these interactive dynamics be considered eco-innovations? Do these effects vary between public and private organizations, and if so, can they be related to specific institutions and policies? Methods include statistical survival analyses, in particular Cox regression. These analyses inform us why energy sources shift. Results indicate that wood fuel and solid waste increase as sources of energy while fossil oil has decreased between 2003 and 2010. This result is in line with industrial and environmental policies of the Swedish governments that present these facts as institutionally and policy-related ‘green innovation’. However, our analysis contests such a conclusion and it is noticed that the shift to non-fossil sources of energy has not led to verifiable decreases in green-house gas emissions. Results instead suggest that ‘green’ innovation of non-fossil energy was mostly the effect of low-tech innovation in public organizations with no fundamental effect on CO2 emissions.

Keywords: Innovation; Fossil; Non-fossil; Energy; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10018-015-0128-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:envpol:v:18:y:2016:i:2:d:10.1007_s10018-015-0128-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... mental/journal/10018

DOI: 10.1007/s10018-015-0128-z

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental Economics and Policy Studies is currently edited by Ken-Ichi Akao

More articles in Environmental Economics and Policy Studies from Springer, Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().