Cleaner technology and technology transfer: a critique of the linear model

Cleaner technology is central to sustainable development. It has the potential, at least in some industries, to reduce environmental impacts whilst enabling economic growth. Indeed, cleaner technology can be seen as resource efficiency, enabling firms to become both cleaner and more competitive at the same time. In contrast, conventional ('end-of-pipe') treatment imposes costs on society which undermine the goal of sustainability. To date, too much of the policy agenda on environmental action has been dominated by a linear model of technology transfer which fails to understand how industrial innovation actually occurs. In this model the implementation of cleaner technology is seen as being driven by scientific advances and high technology solutions which are then transferred into firms. In practice, however, most innovation in cleaner technology is not 'high-tech' it may not even be 'technology' at all, as narrowly defined, when, for example, it involves finding a new market for what was previously considered a waste product. Moreover, much of the innovation required is necessarily specific to the firm and its situation. 'Technology transfer' can be an important source of ideas, techniques and equipment, but rarely can a 'black-boxed' solution be simply adopted from an external source. In practice, much cleaner technology involves incremental use of existing knowledge rather than new inventions. This means radical social and organisational change, not radical scientific and technical change. How, and why, firms innovate is thus central to improving the adoption of cleaner technology. Firms are typically resistant to change, no matter how beneficial it may be in the longer term, and organisational inertia is a major barrier to the implementation of cleaner technology. Policy measures need to take account of the limits of technology transfer in the industrial application of cleaner technology. This cannot be driven by external R&D; it must instead primarily be stimulated in situ (by the correct mixture of compulsion, encouragement, and expertise provision).