Avoiding Environmental Convergence: A Possible Role for Sustainability Experiments in Latecomer Countries?

Frans Berkhout (), Anna J. Wieczorek () and Rob Raven ()
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Frans Berkhout: Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam The Netherlands
Anna J. Wieczorek: Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Rob Raven: School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology EindhovenThe Netherlands

Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), 2011, vol. 3, issue 2, 367-385

Abstract: Global sustainability is increasingly influenced by economic growth and social change in non-OECD countries, especially in Asia. Growth models suggest that industrializing economies will become first relatively more resource- and pollution-intensive, before becoming more resource-efficient and less polluting, following the pattern of higherincome economies. This ‘environmental convergence’ is assumed to parallel economic convergence during processes of catching-up by latecomer countries. To accelerate environmental convergence, or to achieve pathways of ‘green growth’, greater emphasis needs to be placed on sustainable innovation and capability-building in latecomer countries. Drawing on insights from system innovation research on long-run change in socio-technical systems, we discuss the potential role of ‘sustainability experiments’ to generate innovations that will constitute new ‘greener’ growth models. We observe a great number of sustainability-oriented innovation initiatives in latecomer countries. We set out a conceptual framework for assessing the role of experiments, and for evaluating how they link with and become anchored in alternative more sustainable regimes. We argue that sustainability experiments represent a potentially significant new source of innovation and capabilityformation, linked to global knowledge and technology flows, which could influence emergent socio-technical regimes and thereby contribute to alternative development pathways.

Keywords: - convergence; multi-level perspective; sustainability experiment; system innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q01 Q16 Q42 Q48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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