Jens Horbach – författare

Increased ecological awareness and the growing scarcity of resources have led to the introduction of new environmental standards, triggering enterprises, regions, and even countries to adopt new business models and industrial reconversion approaches. However, despite increased interest in business models and their innovation, it still lacks the integration of circularity and sustainability and to date research on these areas is still limited. This book, therefore, provides readers with a closer picture of the issues of business models and their innovation for the circular economy in Europe, where the issues of sustainability and the shift towards the circular economy have become cornerstones of European policies and documents and where significant differences have been identified between firms and countries. This book provides a unique view of different European perspectives and enables the reader to compare the situation in countries with completely different historical and economic conditions as well as with different perceptions of the need for the actions leading to the sustainable development and to the shift towards the circular economy.

Eco-innovations are crucial for reducing the environmental damages arising from economic activities, and are one of the main drivers of a successful transition towards sustainable development and remedying essential climate change problems. This book provides an overview of recent advances in the rapidly growing field of eco-innovation research, adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and outlines the main future developmental trends. A broad range of topics are addressed, including a bibliometric analysis of eco-innovation research, the relationship between eco-innovation and corporate sustainability, eco-innovation system analysis, new evidence on the economic effects of eco-innovation, and the relevance of policy and policy mixes for eco-innovation activities. The book is dedicated to Klaus Rennings, one of the most important representatives of this field, who unexpectedly passed away in September 2015.