The Firm’s Perspective of Industrial Innovation Strategies Towards an Environmentally Sustainable Industrial Economy

The need to achieve sustainable development represents an enormous challenge for society. It means that within the space of a few decades we will have to learn how to use energy and raw materials much more efficiently. According to some estimates, within the next 50 years the burden on the environment will, on average, have to be reduced to one tenth of the current levels in highly industrialized, Western countries (this means an increase in eco-efficiency by a factor of ten) (Weterings, Opschoor 1992). As a first step into this direction von Weizsäcker, Lovins and Lovins (1995) promote an increase in eco-efficiency by a factor of four (this means one quarter of current levels).