Both the EU and China have policies to promote recycling, energy saving, and the green economy. Yet relevant knowledge and data are in short supply, not only on the economic implications but also on how policy can influence drivers like technological innovation. A new three-year project entitled ‘SINCERE’ will gather European and Chinese researchers to fill these gaps. Prof. René Kemp and Eva Bartekova joined the first Sino-European workshop on resource efficiency (RE) and circular economy (CE) ...

Technology can buy us time in a failing environment, but ultimately it will not save us. To be effective, environmental policies need support from all levels of society: from national ministries to local communities. These are just two of the messages from Prof. René Kemp ahead of World Environment Day on 5 June. The bottom line is simple: World Environment Day will be needed for many more years to come. What I’m seeing now as an eco-innovation researcher is a kind of ‘relative decoupling&...

Democrats in the US have been calling President Obama’s recourse to Executive Orders for pushing a key social policy change (minimum wage rise) a case of "leading by example". It so happens that across the Atlantic, leading by example comes packaged as a well-worn policy tool rather specialized for a fiddly problem in a very different policy area, namely the environment....