TA of environmental technologies

An assessment of environmental technologies should, against the background of sustainable development, consider ecological, economic and social aspects. However, there are important goal conflicts between these aspects. This may often lead to social aspects being neglected in favour of technical and economic efficiency.

Therefore, the studies in this research area focus, on the one hand, on the identification of these conflicts during the technology development phase, and on the development of options to solve these conflicts in the light of sustainability. This is accomplished by means of an integrated catalogue of criteria, created during the project "TA of Green Bio-refinery". The catalogue of criteria and its application will be broadened during the assessment of several further environmental technologies with a view to developing a more general approach for TA of environmental technologies within the framework of sustainable development.

"Clean technologies"" have been considered a symbol of environmental protection since the 1980s. "Clean technologies" are used in different production areas to reduce material and energy consumption, to avoid air and water emissions and wastes or to reduce accident risks in industrial production. Unlike after-treatment-processes, they may not shift environmental problems temporally or locally.

Although these technologies are supported by environmental policy through economic and regulative instruments, their development and application take place slower than expected. Since the middle of the 1990s efforts have been made in the EU in particular towards the harmonisation of environment, innovation and technology policy activities by supporting urgently needed "clean technologies" with appropriate measures. Examples of this are the development of the IPPC directive (short definitions), the preparation of the "Best Available Technology REFerences" (BREFs) and the development of the "Environmental Technologies action plan" (ETAP). Hence, in the framework of the EU 6th research programme a research area was established to support political decision-making for environmental technologies.

During the last few years has contributed to the analysis of framework conditions for the development and implementation of environmental technologies. The current activities of in the area of clean technologies in Europe involve the integration of the results from the current project "Industrial clean Technologies diffusion" (CTD) into two future international projects on the subject "Diffusion of innovative environment technologies", namely "Policy pathways to promote the development and adoption of cleaner technologies" and the IPTS project "Assessment of air issue impacts of emerging technologies" which started in January 2004.

Within the framework of this research work potential scenarios will be analysed for the development of different technologies which claim to prevent environmental problems. In the process important factors and their interrelationships will be identified for the development and the implementation of innovative environmental technologies. The findings of this theoretical work will be evaluated through structured interdisciplinary discussions with involved stakeholders in Europe. The results contribute to the design of appropriate strategies for the harmonisation of European environmental, innovation and technology policy.

All projects in the area TA environmental technologies