Diffusion of Green Technology: A Survey

Abstract

This paper surveys the existing literature on diffusion of environmentally beneficial technology. Overall, it confirms many of the lessons of the larger literature on technology diffusion: diffusion often appears slow when viewed from the outside; the flow of information is an important factor in the diffusion process; networks and organizations can matter; behavioural factors such as values and cognitive biases also play a role. With respect to policy instruments, there is some evidence that the flexibility of market-based instruments can have a beneficial impact on technology diffusion, but there are also numerous cases in which regulations have forced the adoption of new technologies. There would be significant benefit to increased investment in studies that look at questions such as the role of information provision, networks and framing issues in households' and firms' adoption decisions.

Innovation, Technology Development and Transfer

“…Diffusion is often sluggish due to lock-in of dominant technologies (Liebowitz and Margolis 1995;Unruh 2000;Ivanova et al 2018), as well as the time needed to diffuse information about the technologies, heterogeneity among adopters, the incentive to wait until costs fall even further, the presence of behavioural and institutional barriers, and the uncertainty surrounding mitigation policies and longterm commitments to climate targets (Gillingham and Sweeney 2012;Corey 2014;Jaffe 2015;Haelg et al 2018). In addition, novel technology has been hindered by the actions of powerful incumbents who accrue economic and political advantages over time, as in the case of renewable energy generation (Unruh 2002;Supran and Oreskes 2017;Hoppmann et al 2019).…”

Green digital finance and technology diffusion

“…Technology diffusion not only promotes cumulative innovation but also improves sustainability by avoiding wasted R&D resources due to the duplication of investments. Knowledge gained from outside sources can contribute to productivity gains to a greater extent than internal research and development (Audretsch and Belitski, 2020;Corey, 2014). However, inventions have remained highly concentrated geographically over the past decade, with inventors in the top ten countries accounting for almost 90% of global inventions (Probst et al, 2021).…”