Technology, decoupling, and ecological crisis: examining ecological modernization theory through patent data

ABSTRACT

Ecological modernization refers to the process of resolving ecological crises through radical improvements in resource efficiency and the substitution of environmentally harmful industrial processes for less harmful ones without undermining economic growth and other capitalist imperatives. An important theoretical perspective within environmental sociology, it is also the intellectual kin of global environmental policies that pursue objectives such as decoupling, green growth, and sustainable development. While numerous studies cast doubt on ecological modernization and its associated policy efforts, existing empirical analyses do not fully address the theory’s core hypothesis on the relationship between technological innovation and environmental impacts. I resolve this problem by using newly available global patent data on environmental technologies across 35 countries from 1982–2016. Results of panel regression analyses demonstrate that a nation’s development of environmental technologies only marginally attenuates the effects of economic activity on a nation’s ecological footprint, while the direct effect of patents is to increase, rather than decrease, a nation’s ecological footprint. These results offer further evidence of the limits of both (a) ecological modernization theory and (b) environmental policies that exclusively emphasize technological solutions to global environmental problems.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological modernization
• technology
• policy
• ecological footprint

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. https://www.footprintnetwork.org/resources/glossary.

2. Several notes regarding the nature of the patent data. First, what are counted in this data set are patent applications rather than patents granted. The year that a patent application falls into is based on its priority date, which is prior to the publication date by approximately 18 months, leaving it somewhere between the application date and the date the patent would be granted. Patent applications included are those received by a national patent office. A full description of the patent data can be found at the citation below:

Haščič I, Migotto M (2015) Measuring environmental innovation using patent data. OECD Environment Working Papers No. 89, OECD Publishing, Paris.

3. Or ecological footprint of consumption – the same model applies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dylan Bugden

Dylan Bugden is a Boeing Distinguished Assistant Professor of Environmental Sociology.