Ecological Innovation Efforts and Performances: An Empirical Analysis

The negative effects caused by global warming and climate change have increased the need for production technologies in decreasing environmental costs. This need has brought up the eco-innovation concept. Eco-innovation policies are the main priority of the European Union in ensuring a sustainable development and in the process of cyclical economy transformation. This chapter aims to investigate the relative eco-innovation efforts and performances of the European Union countries. In order to measure the eco-innovation performances of community members by the European Union, "eco-innovation index" has been published by calculating eco-innovation scoreboard since 2010. The 16 indicators gathered from different data sources are grouped into five thematic areas (eco-innovation inputs, eco-innovation activities, eco-innovation outputs, resource efficiency outputs and socioeconomic outputs). These variables indicate the efforts and performances of the European Union countries in terms of eco-innovation. In other words, eco-innovation inputs and ecoinnovation activities are used as a proxy for eco-innovation efforts. Eco-innovation outputs, resource efficiency outputs and socioeconomic outputs are used as a proxy eco-innovation performance. Cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were used to determine the relative eco-innovation efforts and performances of the European Union countries. The results show that EU countries have different performance levels in terms of eco-innovation efforts