Eco Innovation is a registered non-profit organisation founded in 2004.



Through its research and development (R&D) activities, it aims to improve understanding of eco-innovation processes, raise public awareness of the stakes involved, and promote eco-innovations.

We define eco-innovations (EI) as product, process or organisational innovations that add market value and increase environmental and social acceptance. EI are building blocks for sustainable development.



Today, much emphasis is placed on the environmental and economic pillars of EI. We believe that the EI’s social pillar (e.g., social acceptance, ownership, learning) represents a major bottleneck to sustainable development. Indeed, many potential eco-innovations, albeit technically feasible, are not yet implemented because of social, institutional, and cognitive barriers.



This emphasis on the social pillar of eco-innovation reflects our concern that the barriers to many eco-innovations, and thus to sustainable development, stand more on the side of social acceptance than on the economic and environmental ones.