The greening of technology and models of innovation

The study suggests that the question of whether the world economy can move to a new and sustainable pattern of growth remains open. It is both a question of methods of regulation, economic incentives, and other institutional changes and a question of technological innovations. Although more attention has been paid to incentives and institutions, the potential offered by continuous technological change has been rather neglected. This emerges as a central issue in the ''limits to growth'' debate and its resulting world models. The study argues that, to realize large technoeconomic system transitions, society needs to develop a new model of innovation, combining some features of the much criticized linear model with features of the systemic innovation model.