Export of environmental technologies by publicly owned companies: approaches, drivers and obstacles among Swedish municipal companies

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the export of environmental technology by publicly owned companies. The export of such technologies has the potential to contribute to economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability. However, research on this emerging topic has so far largely focused on privately owned SMEs compared to publicly owned companies. Using interviews with 12 Swedish municipally owned companies which develop such systems and a survey with 36 others, we analyse their approaches, drivers for and obstacles to export. These companies use a combination of different approaches such as subsidiaries, independent projects, licensing and private-public partnerships to engage in export. However, in contrast to private companies which are often driven by internal factors such as extra sales, these municipally owned companies are largely motivated by external factors such as customer requests and opportunities to contribute to environmental sustainability. Furthermore, their main export barriers relate to differences between the business culture and political systems in their home and target markets. Their export experiences are influenced by their municipal ownership, the types of technologies they develop and the institutional contexts within which they operate. This study reveals an actor type struggling to find a balance between domestic obligations and commercialization in international markets.

KEYWORDS:

• Publicly owned companies
• global sustainability
• large technical systems
• technology diffusion
• export
• waste management

Acknowledgements

We want to express our sincere gratitude to the interviewees for making time to participate in the interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Wisdom Kanda http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9445-6177

Notes

1. See Section 2.1 for a definition of the term ‘environmental technology’ used in this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Tekniska Verken’s Industrial Ecology Research Programme under the BMEX project (Business Models for Market Expansion of Swedish Municipal Companies).