Trajectories towards clean technology: example of volatile organic compound emission reductions

This article is based on the observation that, up until now, corporate investment has been limited in clean technologies despite the will of governmental authorities to stimulate them in order to cope with the demands of sustainable development. The paper deals with the issue of the development of clean technologies and the role of regulations as clean technology promoters. It tries to apprehend the characteristics and specificity of clean technology from both an empirical and a theoretical point of view, so as to understand which are the most favourable (or inversely, the most detrimental) conditions for their development. We use case studies concerning the reduction of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions in the chemical and metallurgical industries. These two examples highlight the problems created by the shift from a "with-solvent paradigm" to a "solvent-free paradigm" and the way clean technology trajectories may spread within such paradigms. We show that the problem of clean technology development primarily resides in some factors that impede technological adoption, although a strong and mixed incentives framework prevails. Such impediments are sector-specific, leading to different clean technology trajectories among sectors and indicating areas of sectoral intervention that could become the cornerstones of complementary technology policy. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.