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

  • Research Article
  • Green Growth, Eco Innovation and Sustainable Transitions
  • Published:
Environmental Economics and Policy Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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.

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Notes

  1. See instead IEA 2010 and Zetterberg 2011 on this important topic.

  2. In the documentation from Statistics Sweden (1988, 1991), the quality of RAMS is discussed in “Årlig regional sysselsättningsstatistik 1988:7” and “Kvalitetsdeklaration av den årliga regionala sysselsättningsstatistiken 1991:1”, Statistics Sweden.

  3. Fossil fuels are well known to be the main contributors to CO2 emissions (IPCC 2007b).

  4. The decrease in emissions and consumption registered in the last year of their series could be related to the sharp slowdown of the economy in 2009, which is linked to the global economic crisis of that year.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financed by the Crafoord Foundation (Grant No. 20120695). The authors are also grateful for useful comments from participants of the 3rd edition of the international conference Governance of a Complex World 2014 (GCW 2014), “Smart, inclusive and sustainable growth: lessons and challenges ahead”, 18–20 June, 2014, Campus Luigi Einaudi (CLE), Lungo Dora Siena 100, Turin (Italy). We especially thank Paola Cardamore and two anonymous referees for useful comments.

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  1. University of Halmstad, Box 823, 301 18, Halmstad, Sweden

    Max Rånge & Mikael Sandberg

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  1. Max Rånge
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Correspondence to Mikael Sandberg.

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Rånge, M., Sandberg, M. Windfall gains or eco-innovation? ‘Green’ evolution in the Swedish innovation system. Environ Econ Policy Stud 18, 229–246 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-015-0128-z

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