Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Environment and Social Innovation: Why Technology Never Was the Solution

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Innovation Beyond Technology

Part of the book series: Creative Economy ((CRE))

Abstract

For environmental protection, innovation in products and processes is often seen as the ideal solution. Contributing to economic activity while being ‘environmentally friendly’, it tends to have the favour of all, notably industry and governments. This paper takes the question of environmental protection from another angle and claims that it mainly relies on other kinds of tools than technical innovation—namely compensation schemes, norms, spatial zoning, Environmental Impact Assessments, economic instruments, management techniques, audits, lifecycle analysis, labels, etc. These tools are political, economic and legal in nature and they aim at controlling technical progress and its unwanted, negative side effects. Considering day-to-day usages of these tools, how they are concretely deployed, the compromises that define them, and the actors who mobilize them, it leads to an image that is less optimistic than the one often associated with innovation and green technologies. What it shows is the gap between claims and results, and the fact that these tools do not lead to serious reductions of environmental problems—the key reason being the unwillingness to alter growth and development, to transform our modes of production and our ways of life.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    The way these markets of pollution rights were named varied over time and a detailed study of these nominations (depending on people and institutions) would be most instructive. Here are some quick examples. Economist Kolm used the crudest vocabulary and talked about ‘un droit à nuire’ in 1974. Economists Pearce in 1976, and Barde in 1977 talk about ‘the sell of pollution rights’; in 1981, a report on ‘experiences’ developed in the United States mention ‘marketable rights and banking’, ‘transferable rights’ and ‘marketable permits’; OECD 1985 talks of ‘market creation’ (‘artificial markets can be created where actors might buy “rights” for actual or potential pollutions or where they can sell their “pollution rights”’, p 15); in 1985, Tietenberg talks of ‘emissions trading’, as did OECD in 1989; in 1991 Barde talks about ‘permis négociables’ and OECD of ‘marketable permits’; in 2001 OECD talks about ‘transferable permits’; and in 2007 OECD uses ‘price-based instruments (e.g. taxes)’ and ‘quantity-based instruments (e.g. a ‘cap and trade’ permit system)’ (p 215). Apparently, euphemism has been on the rise.

  2. 2.

    On the place of criminal organizations, http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2010/06/04/l’environnement-a-rapporte-20-5-milliards-d-euros-a-la-mafia-italienne-en-2009_1368086_3214.html.

References

  • Abbott, K. W., & Snidal, D. (2009). The governance triangle: Regulatory standards institutions and the shadow of the state. In W. Mattli & N. Woods (Eds.), The politics of global regulation (pp. 44–88). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, K., & Blackhurst, R. (1992). The greening of world trade issues. NY: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andersson, T., Folke, C., & Nyström, S. (1995). Trading with the environment. Ecology, economics, institutions and politics. London: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barde, J.-P., & Gerelli, E. (1977). Economie et politique de l’environnement. Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartley, T. (2007). Institutional emergence in an era of globalization. The rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions. AJS, 113(2), 297–351.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baya-Laffite, N. (2016). Black-boxing sustainable development: Environmental impact assessment on the river Uruguay. In J. P. Voß & R. Freeman (Eds.), Knowing governance. The epistemic construction of political order (pp. 237–255). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blanc, G. (2015). Une histoire environnementale de la nation, Regards croisés sur les parcs nationaux du Canada, d’Éthiopie et de France. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonneuil, C., & Fressoz, J.-B. (2013). L’événement anthropocène. La Terre, l’histoire et nous. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borri, F., & Bocchaletti, G. (1995). From total quality management to total quality environmental management. The TQM Magazine, 7(5), 38–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boudia, S. (2014). Gouverner par les instruments économiques. La trajectoire de l’analyse coût-bénéfice dans l’action publique. In D. Pestre (Ed.), Le gouvernement des technosciences. Gouverner le progrès et ses dégâts depuis 1945 (pp. 231–260). Paris: La Découver-te.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boudia, S. (2016). Des instruments pour mettre en économie l’environnement. L’économici-sation par approximation et occultation. Ecologie & politique, 52, 45–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boudia, S., & Henry, E. (2015). La mondialisation des risques. Presses Universitaires de Rennes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boudia, S., & Jas, N. (2007). Risk and risk society in historical perspective. History and Technology, 23(4), 317–331.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boudia, S., & Jas, N. (Eds.). (2013). Toxicants, health and regulation since 1945. London: Pickering and Chatto.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boulding, K. E. (1966). The economics of the coming spaceship earth. In H. Jarrett (Ed.), Environmental quality in a growing economy (pp. 3–14). Baltimore, MD: Resources for the Future/Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouleau, G. (2016). Ambiguïtés du leadership européen sur l’environnement. Ecological modernisation: Construction and biases of a European environmental ideology. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00750172.

  • Chatterjee, P., & Finger, M. (1994). The earth brokers. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cheyns, E. (2011). Multi-stakeholder initiatives for sustainable agriculture: Limits of the ‘inclusiveness’ paradigm. In S. Ponte, J. Vestergaard, & P. Gibbon (Eds.), Governing through standards: Origins, drivers and limitations (pp. 210–235). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Company Environmental Reporting (1994). UNEP, I&E, technical report n° 24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comparison of the EU and US Approaches Towards Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground Level Ozone (2004). http://ec.europa.eu/environment/archives/cafe/activities/pdf/case_study1.pdf.

  • Cook, B. J. (1988). Bureaucratic politics and regulatory reform. The EPA and emission trading. New York: Greenwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dales, J. H. (1968). Land, water, and ownership. The Canadian Journal of Economics, 1(4), 791–804.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dauguet, B. (2019). La compensation écologique. Etude d’un dispositif environnemental contemporain comme rapport social de production. PhD, Paris: EHESS, to be defended in December 2019.

    Google Scholar 

  • Demortain, D. (2011). Scientists and the regulation of risks. Standardizing control. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dempsey, J. (2016). Enterprising nature. Economics, markets, and finance in global biodiversity politics. Chichester: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Desrosières, A. (2008). Pour une sociologie historique de la quantification, L’argument statistique I; Gouverner par les nombres, L’argument statistique II. Paris: Presses des Mines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Development and Environment. (1972). Report and working paper of a panel of experts (…). Founex, June 4–12, 1971, Paris, Mouton, UN Geneva, and EPHE (VIe section).

    Google Scholar 

  • Driesen, D. M. (2003). Does emissions trading encourage innovation? Washington, DC: Environmental Law Institute. http://www.eli.org.

  • Dunlap, R. E. (2008). Climate-change views: Republican-democratic gaps expand, May 29, 2008. http://www.gallup.com/poll/107569/climatechange-views-republicandemocratic-gaps-expand.aspx.

  • Ercmann, S. (1996). Enforcement of environmental law in United States and European law: Realities and expectations. Environmental Law, 26(4), 1213–1239.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fergusson, J. (2005). Seeing like an oil company: Space, security, and global capital in Neoliberal Africa. American Anthropologist, 107(3), 377–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fressoz, J.-B. (2012). L’Apocalypse joyeuse. Une histoire du risque technologique. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fressoz, J.-B., & Pestre, D. (2013). Critique historique du satisfecit postmoderne. Risque et ‘société du risque’ depuis deux siècles. In D. Bourg, P.-B. Joly, & A. Kaufman (Eds.), Du risque à la menace. Penser la catastrophe (pp. 19–56). Paris: PUF.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fullerton, D. (1998). How economists see the environment. Selected Works, at http://works.bepress.com/don_fullerton/20.

  • GEMI (The Global Environmental Management Initiative). (1993). Total quality environmental management. Washington DC: GEMI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glasbergen, P., & Schouten, G. (2011). Creating legitimacy in global private governance. The case of the roundtable on sustainable palm oil. Ecological Economics, 70(11), 1891–1899.

    Google Scholar 

  • Global Green Standards: ISO 14000 and Sustainable Development (1996). Winnipeg: IISD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goyal, A. (2006). The WTO and international environmental law. Oxford: Oxford UP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, M., & Berry, J.-F. (1985). White-collar crime is big business. The Nation 240, June 8, p. 689.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hays, S. P. (2000). A history of environmental politics since 1945. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, A. J., & Forbes, M. (2010). The culture and discourse of climate skepticism. October 6. http://www.eenews.net/assets/2010/11/12/document_cw_01.pdf.

  • ICC Guide to Effective Environmental Auditing (1991). Paris: ICC Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jarrige, F., & Le Roux, T. (2017). La Contamination du monde. Une histoire des pollutions à l’âge industriel. Paris: Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jas, N. (2001). Au carrefour de la chimie et de l’agriculture. Les sciences agronomiques en France et en Allemagne, 1840–1914. Paris: Editions des Archives Contemporaines.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jas, N. (2014). Gouverner les substances chimiques dangereuses dans les espaces internationaux. In D. Pestre (Ed.), Le gouvernement des technosciences. Gouverner le progrès et ses dégâts depuis 1945 (pp. 31–63). Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joly, P. B. (2019). Reimagining innovation. In S. Lechevalier (Ed.), Innovation beyond technology (pp. 25–45). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser, D., & Wasserman, L. (2016). The Rockefeller family fund vs. Exxon. The New York Review of Books, December 8 & December 22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelemen, R. D., & Vogel, D. (2010). Trading places: The role of the United States and the European Union in international environmental politics. Comparative Political Studies, 43(4), 427–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelman, S. (1981). Cost-benefit analysis. An ethical critique. Regulation, AEI Journal on Government and Society, 33–40.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolluru, R. V. (Ed.). (1994). Environmental strategies handbook, foreword by Stephan Schmidheiny, chairman of BCSD entitled Looking forward. Our common enterprise. NY: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane, R. (2014). Resources for the future, resources for growth. The making of the 1975 growth ban. In B. Stephan & R. Lane (Eds.), The politics of carbon markets (pp. 27–50). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Roux, T. (2011). Le laboratoire des pollutions industrielles, Paris, 1770–1830. Paris: Albin Michel.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lehtonen, M. (1997). Criteria in environmental labelling, UNEP, Environment and Trade Series, n° 13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manulak, M. W. (2017). Developing world environmental cooperation. The Founex seminar and the Stockholm conference. In W. Kaiser & J.-H. Meyer (Eds.), International organizations and environmental protection. Conservation and globalization in the twentieth century (pp. 103–127). New York: Berghahn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, T., & Roberts, P. (1992). Business and the environment. Planning, Practice & Research, 7(2), 25–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, A. (2010). Global governance and the certification revolution: Types, trends and challenges (November 19). Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies Working Paper No. 53. https://ssrn.com/abstract=1764563 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1764563.

  • Massard-Guilbaud, G. (2010). Histoire de la pollution industrielle. France, 1789–1914. Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Méral, P., & Pesche, D. (Eds.). (2016). Les services écosystémiques. Repenser les relations nature et société. Paris: Quae.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miles, M. P., & Russell, G. R. (1997). ISO 14000 total quality environmental management: The integration of environmental marketing, total quality management, and corporate environmental policy. Journal of Quality Management, 2(1), 151–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nash, L. (2015). Un siècle toxique. L’émergence de la santé environnementale. In C. Bonneuil & D. Pestre (Eds.), Histoire des sciences et des savoirs, tome 3 Le siècle des technosciences (pp. 145–166).

    Google Scholar 

  • Neitzel, H. (1993). Méthode de travail et problématique de 12 années d’expérience de l’Ange Bleu. In J. Vigneron & C. Burstein (Eds.), Ecoproduit. Concept et methodologies (pp. 77–94). Paris: Economica.

    Google Scholar 

  • OCDE. (1972). Problèmes d’économie de l’environnement. Paris: OCDE.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (1985). Environments and economics. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (1994). Trade and environment. Processes and production methods. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (2007). Instrument mixes for environmental policy. Paris: OECD.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oki, S. (2019). ‘Innovation’ as an adaptation of ‘Progress’: Revisiting the epistemological and historical contexts of these terms. In S. Lechevalier (Ed.), Innovation beyond technology (pp. 47–62). Berlin: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. M. (2010). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. USA: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • PARA. Project on Alternative Regulatory Approaches (1981). Alternative regulatory approaches: An overview. http://wetlandia.blogspot.ch/2013/08/jimmy-carter-and-archaeology-of-market.html.

  • Pestre, D. (to be published). Environment: The business revolution, 1988–1992. Voluntary Commitments, Green Management, Labels, submitted to Economy and Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pestre, D. (2006). Introduction aux Science Studies. Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pestre, D. (Ed.). (2014). Le gouvernement des technosciences. Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, T. M. (1995). Trust in numbers. The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Royston, M. G. (1985). Local and multinational corporations: Reappraising environmental management. Environment, 27(1), 12–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruysschaert, D., & Salles, D. (2014). Towards global voluntary standards: Questioning the effectiveness in attaining conservation goals. The case of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Ecological Economics, 107, 438–446.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sampson, G., & Whalley, J. (Eds.). (2005). The WTO, trade and the environment. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schreurs, M. A. (2002). Environmental politics in Japan, Germany, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Short, J. (2012). The paranoid style in regulatory reform. Washington: Georgetown University, jls272@law.georgetown.edu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sklair, L. (2001). The transnational capitalist class. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, V. K. (Ed.). (1984). Environmental policy under reagan’s executive order. The role of benefit-cost analysis. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Syngenta. (2015). Failles dans l’homologation de six OGM en Europe, Le Monde 15/10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toke, D., & Lauber, V. (2007). Anglo-Saxon and German approaches to neoliberalism and environmental policy: The case of financing renewable energy. Geoforum, 38, 677–687.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van des Pijl, K. (1998). Transnational classes and international relations. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vig, N. J., & Faure, M. G. (Eds.). (2004). Green giants? Environmental policies of the United States and the European Union. Cambridge: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • von Molkte, K., Kuik, O., Van der Grijp, N. et al. (1997). Global product chains: Northern consumers, southern producers, and sustainability. UNEP, Environment and Trade Series, n° 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winter, G. (1988). Business and the environment. Hamburg: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity 2017: A Second Notice. BioScience. Published online. November 13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wurzel, R. K. W., Jordan, A., Zito, A. R., & Brückner, L. (2003). From high regulatory state to social and ecological market economy? New environmental policy instruments in Germany. Environmental Politics, 12(1), 115–136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zosel, T. (1990). How 3M makes pollution prevention pay big dividends (pp. 67–72). Winter: Pollution Prevention Review.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France

    Dominique Pestre

Authors
  1. Dominique Pestre
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominique Pestre .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. EHESS, Paris, France

    Sébastien Lechevalier

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Pestre, D. (2019). Environment and Social Innovation: Why Technology Never Was the Solution. In: Lechevalier, S. (eds) Innovation Beyond Technology. Creative Economy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9053-1_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation