Editorial: The nexus between innovation and environmental sustainability
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fenvs-11-1194703.pdf
Description
Published version
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541.2 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Balsa-Barreiro, José
Wang, Shaojian
Tu, Jianjun
Li, Yingcheng
Menendez, Monica
Date Issued
April 11, 2023
Journal
Frontiers in Environmental Science
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Citation
Balsa-Barreiro J, Wang S, Tu J, Li Y and Menendez M (2023) Editorial: The nexus between innovation and environmental sustainability. Front. Environ. Sci. 11:1194703.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Osborn (1948) notably discussed environmental destruction by humankind, and since then, we have only faced growing concerns about resource over-consumption and environmental degradation. In the last few decades, it has become more evident that natural environments are increasingly stressed, potentially harming human communities even in the short to medium term (Steffen et al., 2015). At a global scale, humanity consumes natural resources 1.8 times faster than the rate at which those resources are generated. The consumption rate differs enormously between countries, ranging from 9 in Qatar to 0.3 in Yemen. The two most powerful global economies also show substantial differences: 5.1 (United States) and 2.4 (China) (Global Footprint Network, 2018). Such differences can be explained by factors related to production models and economic maturity, as well as collective lifestyles and behavioral patterns, which must be understood in the right context (Balsa-Barreiro et al., 2022a; Balsa-Barreiro et al., 2022b). Despite technological breakthroughs in recent decades, many scholars emphasize that global economic growth has not been decoupled from environmental impacts and resource needs (Parrique et al., 2019; Hickel and Kallis, 2020). As a result, many countries in the early stages of economic maturity, such as China and other Southeast Asian countries, are still willing to pay high environmental costs for economic growth (Balsa-Barreiro et al., 2019). The trend for the coming years will depend on the implementation of successful eco-innovative approaches, the shift to more mature economies in certain regions, and potentially other factors, such as the emergence of a new geopolitical scenario related to an eventual deglobalization (Balsa-Barreiro et al., 2020) and the emergence of major changes in the labor market (Rossi and Balsa-Barreiro, 2020).
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Media Laboratory
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1194703
