Abstract
This chapter analyses the emergence of sustainable innovations in a selected number of firms and addresses key explanatory factors that contribute to emergence and diffusion of the innovations. The focus is particularly on regional support structures that facilitated the innovation processes, and on gaps between the needs identified within firms’ innovation processes and functions provided by support structures. Ten sustainable innovation processes are analysed to gain insight in the relationship between the nature of the innovation process, the type of needs for firms, and the type of functions provided in regional innovation systems. It is concluded that especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) demand articulation remains a major barrier as users are often only involved when the innovation is ready to enter the market, while regional support functions in this respect are deficient. Moreover, SMEs have major difficulty interpreting and anticipating sustainability policies and regulations at local and national levels, leading to innovations that face major regulatory barriers or are unable to cope with policy changes.
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An important factor in the process was the formation of an EC-directive involving sharpened emission standards for MAC. A ban on HFC-134a is proposed by the EC directive for new cars by 2017, and a ban on new car models with HFC-134a by 2011, with a phasing out process before that. This implies that the prospects for alternative concepts for mobile air conditioning, such as CO2 based technology are promising.
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S. Hofman, P., de Bruijn, T. (2010). The Emergence of Sustainable Innovations: Key Factors and Regional Support Structures. In: Sarkis, J., Cordeiro, J., Vazquez Brust, D. (eds) Facilitating Sustainable Innovation through Collaboration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3159-4_7
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