Application of a Method for Selecting and Evaluating Environmental Technologies with Commercial Potential

This paper focuses on a method to select and evaluate environmental technologies with commercial potential. The process helps guide decision making within government and university laboratories, private research institutions, and companies as they pursue technologies that are most likely to be successfully transferred from the laboratory to the marketplace. The strategic technology evaluation method (STEM), which was designed by Chifos and Jain to evaluate environmental technologies originating in federal laboratories, has been adapted to widen its applicability to include the industrial interests responsible for commercialising technology. The modified STEM incorporates insight gained from new product development processes designed for companies and from the use of technology clusters in regional economic development. The improved method is described, and its application in a recent study of technological innovation in the State of West Virginia is briefly summarised. Application of the method to environmental technologies relevant to Hawaii is then illustrated