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Climate Change and Disruptive Low-Carbon Innovation
Background to the International Workshop on Chinese Low-Carbon Innovation - November 2009
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Low-Carbon Innovation and Industrial Transition to Build a
Low-Carbon Economy 20-21 November 2009, Hangzhou, China |
Organized by:
College of Public Administration, Zhejiang University
Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University
Sponsored by:
Department of Innovation, Universities & Skills, UK
Advanced Institutes of Management & Economic and Social Research Council, UK
1. Background
Climate change is perhaps the single greatest challenge facing humanity, demanding a global transition to low-carbon societies. Carbon use, however, is embedded into everyday life, so profound innovation is needed for this low-carbon shift – to develop different ways of dwelling and working, building and producing, traveling and shopping. As these large social changes show, however, ‘low-carbon innovation’ means more than just new technology. But neither is it just a matter of behavioural change, based on individual choices. Rather new technologies and new social practices interact closely and both will be needed. Similarly, new breakthroughs in high-technology solutions may well be important, but they by no means exhaust the relevant forms innovation. One form of innovation – involving both technological and social innovations – that may be particularly important is what Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen (2000) calls ‘disruptive innovation’ (Please see Appendix below).
Given the global dimensions of the climate challenge and its extraordinary growth in emissions, it is clear that low-carbon innovation in China is an urgent priority, both for China and the world as a whole. There are also exceptional opportunities for low-carbon innovation in China, based on the strength of its economic growth, the great improvements in its national innovation system, the relative lack of high-carbon lock-in and the urgent national pressures towards environmental sustainability. There are also, therefore, enormous opportunities for international collaboration based on mutual benefit, particularly in the context of the current global economic crisis.
The College of Public Administration, Zhejiang University together with the Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University are holding a workshop to bring together policy-makers, business managers, scholars and NGOs from both China and overseas, particularly the UK, to discuss these issues towards concrete, positive practical steps.
Appendix – Disruptive Low-Carbon Innovation
‘Disruptive innovation’ involves production of ‘cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives… often produced by non-traditional players that target previously ignored customers’ and/or use in novel contexts (Willis, Wilsdon & Webb 2007), but which have the medium-term potential for radical restructuring of economic sectors. As a report from the UK’s leading innovation think-tank, NESTA, has noted (ibid. – see http://www.nesta.org.uk/the-disrupters/), this capacity for profound socioeconomic change is precisely what is needed for an effective and timely low-carbon shift. Such innovation also resonates with changes in innovation practice towards the importance of users (von Hippel 2005) and open business models (Chesborough 2006), so maximizing its impact.
‘Disruptive’ low-carbon innovation could be particularly important for China, for a number of reasons:
· While improving rapidly, China’s capacity for hi-tech innovation in many crucial areas relevant to low-carbon issues is still in development, while low-carbon innovation is needed urgently. While hi-tech innovation capacity will – and must – continue to improve (including through international collaboration), there are also great and immediate gains to be made from innovation based on cheaper forms of existing technologies and their use in new settings;
· As Christensen has shown, disruptive innovation has the potential to create new leaders in industries of the future. There can be no doubt that low-carbon innovation will create new industries and profoundly change the structure of existing ones. It is thus greatly in China’s national interest to take the lead in establishing these new sectors through disruptive innovation;
· Increasing disruptive low-carbon innovation in China would be to capitalize upon what is already a great advantage of Chinese innovation, namely its capacity for cost innovation of cheaper alternatives (Zeng & Williamson 2007), and would provide a strategic focus to many of these businesses in terms of the development of the low-carbon industries of the future;
· Finally, as a developing country, low-tech and/or low-cost solutions may often be of greater immediate relevance and assistance than hi-tech ones to much of the Chinese population. Increasing efforts in such innovation may thus serve a domestic low-carbon shift more effectively, especially in the short-term.
In all these ways, therefore, low-carbon innovation in China has the potential to become world-leading, for the good of both China itself and the broader global effort on climate change. But this raises the urgent questions: ‘How can this potential be made a reality?’ And ‘What can be learnt and achieved by international collaboration on these issues?’ These are themes of this workshop.
To view a call for papers, please click here. A registration form and information on accommodation, can be viewed here.