IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ekz/ekonoz/2010403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable technologies do not exist!

Author

Listed:
  • René Kemp

    (Maastricht University)

Abstract

Innovation and sustainable development are broad, general concepts with positive connotations which are widely used in the social sciences, but usually in an ambiguous, imprecise way. This paper examines various definitions and meanings of sustainability as a preliminary step in analysing sustainable technologies. The term “sustainable technologies” is actually incorrect since sustainable development is not a question of technology or organisation regarding the sustainability of firms but rather a systemic matter. It is wrong to consider certain technologies as sustainable because it is physically impossible for a technology to have no impact at all on the environment: all production and consumption actions have environmental impacts. “Innovation for sustainable development” is a complex idea, due to the opposing requirements (for support and control) that it entails. Innovation policy must take a systemic outlook regarding innovation that combines benefits for users and for society as a whole.

Suggested Citation

  • René Kemp, 2010. "Sustainable technologies do not exist!," EKONOMIAZ. Revista vasca de Economía, Gobierno Vasco / Eusko Jaurlaritza / Basque Government, vol. 75(04), pages 22-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:ekz:ekonoz:2010403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ogasun.ejgv.euskadi.net/r51-k86aekon/es/k86aEkonomiazWar/ekonomiaz/downloadPDF?R01HNoPortal=true&idpubl=71®istro=1082
    File Function: complete text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sartorius, Christian, 2006. "Second-order sustainability--conditions for the development of sustainable innovations in a dynamic environment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 268-286, June.
    2. Smith, Adrian & Stirling, Andy & Berkhout, Frans, 2005. "The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 1491-1510, December.
    3. Annemarie van Zeijl-Rozema & Ron Cörvers & René Kemp & Pim Martens, 2008. "Governance for sustainable development: a framework," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(6), pages 410-421.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chong‐Wen Chen, 2022. "Approaching sustainable development goals: Inspirations from the Arts and Crafts movement to reshape production and consumption patterns," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 1671-1681, December.
    2. Lhuillery, Stephane & Befort, Nicolas & Atmane, Samih, 2025. "Biotechnology or bioeconomy: Six of one and half a dozen of the other?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    3. Befort, N., 2021. "The promises of drop-in vs. functional innovations: The case of bioplastics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marletto, Gerardo, 2011. "Structure, agency and change in the car regime. A review of the literature," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 47, pages 71-88.
    2. Jan-Peter Voß & Adrian Smith & John Grin, 2009. "Designing long-term policy: rethinking transition management," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(4), pages 275-302, November.
    3. Eva Heiskanen & Sirkku Kivisaari & Raimo Lovio & Per Mickwitz, 2009. "Designed to travel? Transition management encounters environmental and innovation policy histories in Finland," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(4), pages 409-427, November.
    4. Laura Mariani & Benedetta Trivellato & Mattia Martini & Elisabetta Marafioti, 2022. "Achieving Sustainable Development Goals Through Collaborative Innovation: Evidence from Four European Initiatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(4), pages 1075-1095, November.
    5. Gerardo Marletto, 2009. "Heterodox Environmental Economix: Theoretical Strands in Search of a Paradigm," ECONOMICS AND POLICY OF ENERGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 0(1), pages 25-33.
    6. Hamid El Bilali, 2020. "Transition heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1693-1728, March.
    7. Garud, Raghu & Gehman, Joel, 2012. "Metatheoretical perspectives on sustainability journeys: Evolutionary, relational and durational," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 980-995.
    8. Süsser, Diana & Döring, Martin & Ratter, Beate M.W., 2017. "Harvesting energy: Place and local entrepreneurship in community-based renewable energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 332-341.
    9. Capellán-Pérez, Iñigo & Campos-Celador, Álvaro & Terés-Zubiaga, Jon, 2018. "Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 215-229.
    10. Funcke, Simon & Bauknecht, Dierk, 2016. "Typology of centralised and decentralised visions for electricity infrastructure," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 67-74.
    11. Åkerman, Maria & Kilpiö, Aino & Peltola, Taru, 2010. "Institutional change from the margins of natural resource use: The emergence of small-scale bioenergy production within industrial forestry in Finland," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 181-188, March.
    12. Hellsmark, Hans & Hansen, Teis, 2020. "A new dawn for (oil) incumbents within the bioeconomy? Trade-offs and lessons for policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    13. Xiaojun Zhang & Weiqiao Wang & Yunan Bai & Yong Ye, 2022. "How Has China Structured Its Ecological Governance Policy System?—A Case from Fujian Province," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-22, July.
    14. Okereke, Chukwumerije & Coke, Alexia & Geebreyesus, Mulu & Ginbo, Tsegaye & Wakeford, Jeremy J. & Mulugetta, Yacob, 2019. "Governing green industrialisation in Africa: Assessing key parameters for a sustainable socio-technical transition in the context of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 279-290.
    15. Ciarli, Tommaso & Ràfols, Ismael, 2019. "The relation between research priorities and societal demands: The case of rice," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 949-967.
    16. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.
    17. Arman Avadikyan & Patrick Llerena, 2009. "Socio-technical transition processes: A real option based reasoning," Working Papers of BETA 2009-21, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    18. Pim Martens & Mohsin Raza, 2010. "Is Globalisation Sustainable?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-14, January.
    19. Gill Seyfang & Alex Haxeltine, 2012. "Growing Grassroots Innovations: Exploring the Role of Community-Based Initiatives in Governing Sustainable Energy Transitions," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(3), pages 381-400, June.
    20. Eleftheriadis, Iordanis M. & Anagnostopoulou, Evgenia G., 2015. "Identifying barriers in the diffusion of renewable energy sources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 153-164.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sustainable development; system innovation; sustainable technologies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q28 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy
    • Q55 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Technological Innovation
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ekz:ekonoz:2010403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Iñaki Treviño (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debages.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.