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Nanotechnology for green innovation - a new OECD paper
(Nanowerk News) A new paper by the OECD Working Party on Nanotechnology ("Nanotechnology for Green Innovation"; pdf) brings together information collected through discussions and projects undertaken relevant to the development and use of nanotechnology for green innovation. It relies in particular on preliminary results from the WPN project on the Responsible Development of Nanotechnology and on conclusions from a symposium, organised by the OECD WPN together with the United States National Nanotechnology Initiative, which took place in March 2012 in Washington DC, United States, on Assessing the Economic Impact of Nanotechnology. It also draws on material from the four background papers that were developed for the symposium. The background papers were:
  • “Challenges for Governments in Evaluating the Return on Investment from Nanotechnology and its Broader Economic Impact” by Eleanor O’Rourke and Mark Morrison of the Institute of Nanotechnology, United Kingdom;
  • “Finance and Investor Models in Nanotechnology” by Tom Crawley, Pekka Koponen, Lauri Tolvas and Terhi Marttila of Spinverse, Finland;
  • “The Economic Contributions of Nanotechnology to Green and Sustainable Growth” by Philip Shapira and Jan Youtie, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, United States; and
  • “Models, Tool and Metrics Available to Assess the Economic Impact of Nanotechnology” by Katherine Bojczuk and Ben Walsh of Oakdene Hollins, United Kingdom.
    • The purpose of the paper is to provide background information for future work by the WPN on the application of nanotechnology to green innovation. Here is the Executive Summary:
    The need for development of affordable and safe ways of addressing global challenges, in areas such as energy, environment and health, has never been more pressing. The global demand for energy is expected to increase by more than 30% between 2010 and 2035 (International Energy Agency, 2011). More than 800 million people worldwide are currently without access to safe drinking water (WHO, 2010). Such challenges have resulted in increasing attention being paid by policymakers, researchers, and corporations to new technologies, and the application of technologies in new ways. Green innovation is one such new way of addressing global challenges.
    Green innovation is innovation which reduces environmental impacts: by increasing energy efficiency, by reducing waste or greenhouse gas emissions and/or by minimising the consumption of nonrenewable raw materials, for example. OECD countries and emerging economies alike are seeking new ways to use green innovation for increased competitiveness through a transition to a so-called “green growth” scenario based on the application of technology (OECD, 2012a). Within the group of technologies which are expected to help to contribute to that transition, nanotechnology is attracting particular attention.
    Since it began its work in 2007, the OECD Working Party on Nanotechnology (WPN) has developed a number of projects addressing emerging policy issues of science, technology and innovation related to the responsible development of nanotechnology. During that time, discussions within the WPN have increasingly highlighted the potential of nanotechnology to support green growth, focusing on two particular aspects: i) the potential for nanotechnology to contribute to green innovation; and ii) the potential and perceived risks and environmental costs of using the technology. The second of these may reduce the ability of nanotechnology to achieve its green goals, i.e. to meet its “green vocation”.
    Green nanotechnology in the context of a green innovation transition
    Nanotechnology for green innovation – green nanotechnology – aims for products and processes that are safe, energy efficient, reduce waste and lessen greenhouse gas emissions. Such products and processes are based on renewable materials and/or have a low net impact on the environment. Green nanotechnology is also about manufacturing processes that are economically and environmentally sustainable.
    Green nanotechnology is increasingly being referred to in connection with other concepts such as green chemistry and sustainable and green engineering and manufacturing. The principles of green chemistry can be applied to produce safer and more sustainable nanomaterials and more efficient and sustainable nano manufacturing processes. Conversely, the principles of nanoscience can be used to foster green chemistry by using nanotechnology to make manufacturing more environmentally friendly. Green nanotechnology can have multiple roles and impacts across the whole value chain of a product and can be of an enabling nature, being used as a tool to further support technology or product development, for example:
  • Nanotechnology can play a fundamental role in bringing a key functionality to a product (e.g. nanotechnology-enabled batteries);
  • Nanotechnology may constitute a small percentage of a final product whose key functions hinge on exploiting the size-dependent phenomena of nanotechnology (e.g. electric cars using nanotechnology-enabled batteries);
  • Nanotechnology can improve or enable sustainable and green processes that lead to the development and production of a nanotechnology-enabled product without that final product containing any nanomaterials.
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    Significant advances have been made in the field of nanotechnology in the past decade and more, helping it to move closer to achieving its green potential. However, the economic and environmental sustainability of green solutions involving nanotechnology is in many cases as yet unclear and some novel solutions bring with them environmental, health and safety (EHS) risks (e.g. high energy manufacturing processes and processes which may rely on toxic materials). These risks must be mitigated in advancing green nanotechnology solutions.
    Green nanotechnology is expected to increasingly impact on a large range of economic sectors, ranging from food packaging to automotives, from the tyre industry to electronics. Nanotechnology is also increasingly being applied in conjunction with other technologies, such as biotechnology and energy technologies, leading to products incorporating multiple green technological innovations.
    The policy environment for green nanotechnology
    When reviewing government strategies for science, technology and innovation, the presence of nanotechnology for green innovation is apparent. Recurrent priorities in governmental programmes include nanotechnology for energy production and storage; nanotechnology for water treatment; and nanotechnology for the environment (in particular, in reducing pressure on raw materials and in fostering sustainable manufacturing and sustainably manufactured products).
    In many countries, supports for green nanotechnology have been mainstreamed within more general efforts to 'green' the trajectory of the economy. Green nanotechnology operates in a complex landscape of fiscal and legislative policies and allied measures for green growth and science, technology and innovation. Framing conditions - such as regulation, standards and research, environmental and enterprise policy – are strongly influencing the development of green nanotechnology for processes or products.
    If the reasons behind investment in nanotechnology vary to some extent at national levels (depending on national scientific and economic specialisations, competitiveness goals and societal objectives), there still remains a common trend, visible in both OECD and emerging economies, in governments seeing nanotechnology as having the potential to address social and environmental challenges while supporting industrial competitiveness and economic growth. Policies for green nanotechnology broadly aim to facilitate its development and its potential to be used for efficient, affordable and safe applications. Technology policies mainly take the form of R&D investments – increasingly directed towards more applied research although basic research is often retained as an important area for investment – and support for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs). Efforts are also being made to reduce uncertainty around the use of nanotechnology (especially regulatory uncertainty) and to ensure responsible development. These are evidenced in the investment in a growing number of initiatives (at national and international levels) which are looking at environmental health and safety (EHS) risks and ethical and social issues.
    Diminishing and sharing the costs of the development and commercialisation of green nanotechnology (i.e. risk reduction and sharing) is also a focus for policy intervention. Although green nanotechnology is increasingly demonstrating its potential to move out of the laboratory and into concrete solutions for products and processes, there is still a great hesitancy from companies to lead the way. This reluctance derives from a number of factors including the risks associated with the technology (e.g. consumer acceptance, EHS, ethical and social risks); regulatory uncertainty; the lack of maturity of the technology; market uncertainty; the low number of successful demonstrators of the benefits of using nanotechnology (in the form of green nanotechnology products already on the market); and a strong competition with traditional technologies and production techniques.
    For nanotechnology to address major environmental and societal challenges, products using nanotechnology need to be manufactured and used in large volumes. Funding is needed to support prototyping and pilot manufacturing, as this is a point at which costs and risk are at their highest, discouraging corporations and institutional investors from funding these activities. Policies are increasingly being developed which are directed at funding proof of concept, pilot and demonstration projects.
    In addition, efforts are being made to strengthen the links between public and private entities. Industrial consortia are being developed with the support of, and sometimes initiated by, public bodies, for example, the NanoBusiness Alliance in the United States and the Nanotechnology Industries Association in Europe. At the research, development and early commercialisation stages, more innovative approaches to sharing risk and knowledge are also being developed based on large consortia comprising companies, public laboratories and institutions (e.g. Genesis, InnoCNT, NanoNextNL). Such consortia allow for risk sharing between public and private entities, but also risk sharing among companies themselves. Consortia may also help to manage the uncertainty of bringing a product to market when no similar technologies have previously been commercialised or when the demand for the technology/application is not yet clear.
    There is also a general trend to reinforce the links between public entities themselves. Within the OECD and emerging economies, co-ordination between different ministries, agencies and departments to support nanotechnology and nanotechnology for green applications was commonly seen in WPN projects.
    There may also be a role for demand-side policies supporting the development and commercialisation of nanotechnology for global challenges, including the use of green nanotechnology. Scenarios are often seen in nanotechnology product development in which producers are reluctant to invest in options for which customers and users are not yet articulating a clear demand or where no clear products options are identified as yet. This uncertainty about market perspectives and customer/user demand and requirements is being addressed through new alliances and consortia, as mentioned above, but there may also be a need for interventions to further reduce the uncertainty, including demand-side policies.
    The potential impact of nanotechnology on green innovation
    Increasingly, as the technology is being developed, efforts are being made to try to find ways of assessing or tracking the impact of nanotechnology on specific policy objectives such as green growth. This is a very challenging task due to the sheer number of applications of nanotechnology across all economic sectors and its broad enabling nature, as well as the potential for it to impact across value chains and to create a complex setting for any robust impact analysis. The potential risks of new green nanotechnologies might need to be compared with those of current technologies (which may, for example, also be energy intensive and present various risks) and against the human and environmental costs of not effectively addressing key global challenges (such as reducing carbon emissions or providing potable water). The policy landscape in which nanotechnology operates is complex, evolving and responsive to economic and social challenges. A wide range of potential economic, environmental and societal implications of the technology needs to be included in methodologies for assessing the impact of green innovation through nanotechnology.
    Source: OECD