The role of public policy in stimulating radical environmental impact reduction in the automotive sector: the need to focus on product-service system innovation (original) (raw)

Integrated Product Policy in the automobile industry - policies, strategies and challenges

The importance of a move towards sustainable production and consumption patterns has been topical since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The increasing significance of production and consumption issues goes along with a transformation from a government to governance approach in environmental policy (Scheer and Rubik, 2006). Scheer and Rubik (2006: 11) judge this a 'traditional' environmental policy approach against a 'modern' environmental approach. Integrated Product Policy (IPP) exemplifies this new paradigm in environmental policy. In this article, it will be analysed how and in what way IPP has been applied in the automotive product chain. The automotive industry currently faces increasing regulatory pressure to improve both its methods in production and the sustainability of its products. Many automobile manufacturers have adopted proactive environmental strategies and it is common practice to implement an E...

Integrated Environmental Innovation in the German Automotive Industry: Policy Drivers and Consequences for Competitiveness, resent 21.12. 2004

This paper examines the environmental innovation process in various branches of the German automotive industry. The focus is on the policy drivers of environmental innovation and how industry adapts and with which effects for the competitiveness of the industry. In particular, the development of integrated products and technologies is examined. According to the Porter hypothesis it was analysed whether regulation-driven innovation does stimulate win-win potentials for firms. In a regional case study approach, a sample of automotive firms in Southern Germany and their suppliers were interviewed. Essentially, integrated environmental innovation is driven by a mixture of factors internal and external to the firm: not only policy pressure, but cost pressure, competitive advantages, technological lead and customer pressure are important drivers. Policy pressure did not only comprehend sectoral policies like emission vehicle standards, but -among other things -also wider non-sectoral issu...

Product Service Systems in the automotive industry: an alternative business model for a sustainable satisfaction system

The paper presents the intermediate results of an on-going research project called Vehicle Design Summit (VDS), run by an international Consortium of Universities coordinated by the MIT of Boston. The project aims at designing and prototyping an eco-efficient vehicle as well as defining an innovative and sustainable business model to introduce and diffuse it into the mobility sector. In this framework the paper explores the potential contribution that PSSs can have in moving beyond incremental technological improvements towards system innovation in the automotive industry. This is outlined presenting and discussing an alternative business model, characterized by: an approach to mobility as the scope of design; an innovative stakeholders network; a shift from selling products to selling results; a change in product ownership; and a consequent change in vehicle design.

Sustainability, new economics and policy: Greening pathway for the auto industry

International Journal of Technology Management & Sustainable Development, 2014

There have been several arguments from scholars on the question of how we can attain sustainable development (SD). The aim of the article is to explore realistic policies and programmes for achieving sustainable auto manufacturing with a question of ‘how do we manufacture vehicles in a way that is sustainable?’ To discuss how we can achieve sustainable auto manufacturing, I draw on a framework consisting of four innovations–technological, organizational, institutional and social change–and three sustainability pillars–economic development, the environment and employment. All four kinds of innovation need to receive attention in a coordinated manner and careful government policies are needed, thereby reaching a certain sustainability goal.

Sustainable Product-Service Systems. Between Strategic Design and Transition Studies

2014

The Product-Service System (PSS) concept represents, theoretically and practically, a promising model to steer our production and consumption systems towards sustainability. PSSs are business models based on selling performance (i.e. results) rather than products. They can provide a range of economic and competitive advantages and, if properly designed, can support the dematerialisation of economy and hence provide environmental benefits. However, it must be stressed that the uptake of this business concept by companies is still very limited. The key problem is that sustainable PSSs can be considered radical innovations. They may require a profound redefinition of the production and consumption modalities and hence their implementation may cope with the current and dominant socio-technical systems. In other words they may challenge existing customer habits, organisational structures and regulative frameworks. For this reason the introduction and scaling-up of such innovations are not completely under the control of a company (or a small network of actors), because changes in the factors that form the boundary conditions (i.e. existing organisations, institutions and networks that share dominant practices, rules and interests), are also required. Although the concept of sustainable PSS has been discussed in the literature for over a decade, not much attention has been devoted to understand how the process of introduction and scaling-up takes place and how it can be managed and oriented. There is therefore a knowledge gap regarding the mechanism and factors driving the implementation and diffusion of this kind of innovations and, consequently, there is a lack of strategies, approaches and tools to enable project managers, management consultants and strategic designers in designing and managing this process. The research presented in this book aims at tackling these issues and in particular at answering the following questions: How sustainable Product-Service System can be introduced and scaled-up? How this transition process can be designed, managed and oriented? The book seeks to answer these challenges by integrating concepts and insights from two research streams: one on Product-Service System (PSS) design and the other on transition studies. In particular the book, through industrial case studies and an action research project, explores and delineates the role of strategic design in supporting the introduction and scaling-up of sustainable PSS innovations. A new strategic design role thus emerges, a role in which the ideation and development of sustainable PSS concepts is coupled with the designing of appropriate transition paths to gradually incubate, introduce and diffuse these innovations. A key role in these transition paths is given to the implementation of socio-technical experiments: protected spaces where radical innovations can be tested, become more mature, and potentially challenge and change dominant socio-technical practices, habits and institutions. The book contributes to clarify how these socio-technical experiments can act as incubators where PSS innovation can start, proliferate and develop. In particular the book focuses on the role of experiments as Labs (to test, learn and improve the PSS innovation on multiple dimensions and involving a multiplicity of actors), Windows (to raise interest on the innovation project and the related actors, disseminate results, build-up synergies with existing similar projects/initiatives, and attract and enrol new actors), and Agents of change (to influence contextual conditions in order to favour and hasten the societal embedding process).