Sustainability trends: Trends in Green
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
G: Green Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Sustainability and business development
Per Dannemand Andersen
Technology and Innovation Management division
pean@dtu.dk
Creating technology for a sustainable society
A sustainable society is considered to involve
a balanced interplay of three main elements
to meet the needs of present generations
without compromising the possibilities of
future generations to meet their own needs:
• The environmental boundary conditions that
set the limits on resource supply, waste
disposal and environmental pollution;
• How the economy balances production and
consumption processes within – or currently
beyond - the environmental constraints;
• How society politically and culturally decides
to manage the social effects of the above
constraints given by the short and long term
consequences of our activities.
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
The ‘Brundtland Report’
11 December 2015
Creating technology for a sustainable society
•Creating technology is not enough to reach a sustainable
society
•Innovation and entrepreneurship are needed to utilize new
technologies towards a sustainable society
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
Green Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Innovation and Entrepreneurship are associated with (among others):
• Business creation
• Start-ups
• Personal drive among entrepreneurs
• Personal and financial risks
• Successes and failures (billionaires and bankruptcies)
• Mindset for innovation and entrepreneurship
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
A look back to late 1980s
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
A look back to 1999
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
My concluding remarks from 1999
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
Self-made USD billionaires within Green Tech
- examples
Country
Net worth
USD billion
Elon Musk
Tesla, SolarCity
US
$12.4
Aloys Wobben
Enercon (wind turbines)
Germany
$3.3
Rubens Ometto
Cosan (ethanol)
Brazil
$1.4
Zhu Gongshan
GCL Poly Energy (solar)
China
$1.2
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
Source: www.forbes.com
11 December 2015
Danish Green Tech (DKK) billionaires
- examples
Flemming Skouboe
LM Glasfiber (wind turbines)
Peter Stubkjær Sørensen
Bonus Energi (wind turbines)
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
Source: www.borsen.dk
11 December 2015
Danish Green Tech start-up
• Not impossible – done before !
• Who will become the next Danish green tech billionaire ?
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
A look back to 2006
• Innovation and entrepreneurship: ‘just a crazy idea of the minister and the provost’
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
What do we know about Green Innovation and
Entrepreneurship in Denmark?
• Focus on energy
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
What do we know about Energy Innovation and
Entrepreneurship in Denmark?
Large surveys:
Funded by the strategic research council (now
InnovationsFonden)
Partners:
• DTU, Denmark
• Aalborg University, Denmark
• CBS, Denmark
• NIFU, Norway
• Chalmers, Sweden
• EAWAG, Switzerland
• Utrecht University, the Netherlands
• ZEW, Germany
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
2007 survey (DTU)
• 317 replies
2012 survey (DTU)
• 429 replies
2014 CIS survey (Aalborg University)
• 550 firms
2016 new survey (DTU)
11 December 2015
What do we know about Green Innovation and
Entrepreneurship in Denmark?
• Firms in the Danish energy sector are more innovative than Danish industry in average
(2007, 2011)
• National market conditions are still the major driver for innovation (2007, 2011)
• Firms who introduce green innovations are notably more likely to engage in collective
innovation activities than non-green innovators (2015)
• Collaboration patterns in terms of which actors they interact with are almost exactly as in
other firms, only with higher frequency (2015)
Sources:
• Borup, Andersen, Gregersen, Tanner (2009)
• Borup, Jacobsen, Bagratunjan (2014)
• Nogueira, Hain, Christensen (2015)
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
What do we do about Green Innovation and
Entrepreneurship?
Research - examples
Teaching – examples
• Studying trends and dynamics in the
greening of technologies, firms, industry
and the economy
• 42435 - Knowledge based Entrepreneurship
• 42436 - Commercialization of high tech
concepts, entrepreneurship and science in
action
• 42438 - Business model design for growth
entrepreneurship
• Sectoral patterns in eco-innovation
• Eco-innovation indicators
• Innovation and impact indicators
• Energy innovation systems
• Innovation system on water
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
• 42575 Technology and Innovation
Management
11 December 2015
A few trends – based on my personal observations
1. Increasing societal understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship
2. Increasing acceptance of industrial innovation and entrepreneurship as key solutions for the
sustainability challenge – not key problems
3. Big change among our students interests in innovation and entrepreneurship
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015
And now to the presentations for this afternoon
DTU Management Engineering, Technical University of Denmark
11 December 2015