Building innovation ecosystems to drive carbon neutral sustainability goals

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change is the defining sustainability challenge of the twenty-first century which city-level political leaders are attempting to address by setting carbon neutrality goals for their regions. To reach these goals requires the development of new technologies that only innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs), not small businesses, have the ability to create. IDEs tend to form around one another in clusters known as innovation ecosystems. According to the MIT IDE framework, four elements are necessary for the prosperous growth of an innovation ecosystem: capacity of innovation and entrepreneurship, social structure, economic structure, and underlying institutions. If a region has a desire to create an innovation ecosystem capable of producing IDEs that have a carbon neutral focus, they must adequately develop each of these four elements in a strategic manner. Copenhagen, Denmark and Oslo, Norway are two cities which have made a commitment to become 100% carbon neutral. To achieve their goals, they are growing innovation ecosystems with a focus towards carbon neutrality. Applying the MIT IDE framework to the current progress of these two regions reveals recommendations for future areas of development which will quicken their success. These recommendations include 1) generating significant demand and providing early stage investment for companies with carbon neutral goals, 2) collecting better data about green innovation and economic growth against which the regions can benchmark their progress, and 3) crafting supportive policies which allow current infrastructure to become available for new technology testing.