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Like other contemporary challenges grand and small, sustainability has been understood as paradoxical (Smith & Lewis, 2011), “wicked” problems (Starik & Kanashiro, 2013) characterized by multiple stakeholders, disputed values, complex interconnectedness, foggy problem definition, limited or contested knowledge and ongoing change (McMillan & Overall, 2016). This chapter presents consultation as a precondition for sustainable entrepreneurship (research) since ability to identify, cultivate and engage relevant conversation partners is essential for facilitating productive entrepreneurial (inter-)action. First, we discuss aspects of sustainable entrepreneurship that call for stakeholder consultation and involvement. Next, the concept of advice-seeking consultation/consulting is discussed as the pursuit of knowledge from relevant others for professional purposes. We go on to present the Productive Consultation Matrix portraying consultation as a combination of ability to facilitate trustful knowledge sharing and engagement. Throughout the chapter, we present cases from consultation practice. The chapter concludes the chapter with a discussion of consultation potentials and pitfalls.

The purchasing power of public sector organizations can be used to promote strategic policy objectives such as sustainability, innovation, and the concept of circular economy (CE). In Denmark, total greenhouse gas emissions from public procurement (PP) activities comprise approximately 12 million tons CO2eq/year. Thus, if sustainability criteria and CE are considered in PP, there is a potential for environmental savings and for driving innovation toward circularity. Directive 2014/24/EU on PP makes it possible to include sustainability criteria or CE in public tenders. In order to aid this process, the case company Vraa Dampvaskeri has, together with researchers from Aalborg University, developed a guide for sustainable PP focusing on workwear and laundry services. In this chapter, we explore how this guide has been used in practice. This includes a consideration of the way in which such a guide can aid the process of setting sustainable and circular criteria in public tenders, thus supporting a transition to CE. Although the guide is now supported by national criteria for textiles in the Danish Partnership for Green PP, these tools cannot stand alone, as their use by PP officers is voluntary. Market engagement is imperative for inclusion of sustainability and CE in tenders, and the involvement of user groups is essentially important.

The Ecodesign Directive and the EU energy labelling have proven to be effective policy instruments to reduce energy consumption and thereby CO2 emissions. It is estimated that the Ecodesign Directive and the EU energy labelling have resulted in savings in 2020 of approximately 9% of the current energy consumption and 7% of the carbon emissions (European Commission 2019). In the new circular economy action plan from the European Commission, the Ecodesign Directive is assigned a key role in the transition towards a circular economy; indeed, it is a policy tool which can ensure circular design of products entering the European Market. However, studies have shown that around 10%–20% of the products on the European Market are non-compliant with the ecodesign requirements (Petersson and Nielsen 2013); consequently, 10% of the total energy savings are lost (Baton et al. 2017). It is therefore key to ensure that existing and future material efficiency requirements, in support of a circular economy, can be verified in relation to market surveillance. This has precisely been the theme of this project. This project has analysed existing and future material efficiency requirements under the Ecodesign Directive and the EU energy labelling and how these are verified. The point of departure for the analysis of the future material efficiency requirements is the work conducted under the standardisation mandate M/543 from the European Commission targeting material efficiency aspects under the Ecodesign Directive. The document review of the adopted implementing measures under the Ecodesign Directive, covering 28 energy-related product groups, showed that 22 implementing measures include information requirements targeting material efficiency, while only nine include specific requirements. The specific requirements cover aspects such as durability (or reliability using the definition from EN 45552), availability of firmware, easy disassembly, spare parts availability, access to repair and maintenance information for professional repairers, data deletion options, disassembly for recyclability and guidelines for marking plastic and hazardous substances. The standards developed under M/543 targeting material efficiency aspects are horizontal standards, which cannot be directly applied to energy-related products or product groups. The only exceptions are the standard on critical raw materials (EN 45558) and the standard on methods for providing information (EN 45559), which can be applied directly to products or product groups. The horizontal standards are intended to provide the framework for developing product or product group–specific standards. The horizontal standards focus on durability, remanufacture, repair, recyclability, reused components, recycled content and critical raw materials. The maturity level of the different methods in the horizontal standards varies, a factor that could also have an impact on the time horizon for their implementation. Only the standards on critical raw materials and providing information are considered directly applicable. The concepts are also at different levels of maturity. It is more likely that specific criteria will be set for the reliability than for the durability of products because more standards already exist regarding reliability. The analysis of the future material efficiency requirements revealed that there is a considerable overlap between the durability standard (EN 45552); the standard on remanufacturing (EN 45553); and the standard on repair, reuse and upgrade (EN 45554), as they cover overlapping and similar aspects. This is an obvious consequence of the fact that a product’s ability to be repaired or upgraded affects the product’s durability and its ability to be remanufactured. The study revealed two aspects not covered in detail by the standardisation mandate M/543, namely considerations regarding reduced resource or material consumption and chemicals and restrictions hereof. Both aspects are important in a transition to a circular economy.The existing experience with control measurements of the adopted material efficiency requirements are still limited in Denmark. Denmark and the other Nordic countries, in particular Sweden, are considered to be some of the countries dedicating the most resources to market surveillance in Europe. It is therefore likely that the existing experience with control measurements through product testing in the EU member states is still limited. An exception is Sweden, which is further elaborated in chapter 8. The limited experience entails that there might be undiscovered difficulties in the verification and test of these requirements, which will not be uncovered before more experience with control measurements have been gained. A recommendation is therefore to make use of a future European project such as Eco-design Compliance Projects (EEPLIANT) to gain more experience with market surveillance of the material efficiency requirements across the EU member states.Due to the horizontal nature of the standards, it is still difficult to evaluate how easy it will be to verify these types of aspects. The standards suggest different types of assessment methods and a few general remarks can be made on their verification.• For the durability standard 45552, it will be potentially more complex to verify future durability requirements (covering both repair and remanufacturing steps) compared with future reliability requirements, as the reliability concept is further developed in the standardisation context. • For the standard EN 45553 on remanufacturing, the assessment methods have not been well developed yet, as it primarily identifies important product attributes and criteria that are vital for remanufacturing processes. • For the EN 45554 standard on repair, reuse and upgrade only, one of the assessment methods is based on a calculation, while the remaining criteria are evaluated based on a classification of the different aspects according to a scale ranging from A to E. This classification of the different criteria can embed a qualitative interpretation if the requirements for the different classifications are not well defined. Further study is therefore needed to examine the verification of these types of requirements.• The EN 45556 standard on the proportion of reused component and the EN 45557 standard on recycled content can only be determined indirectly, as no methods exist to measure this directly. The verification is, therefore, by means of documented evidence from manufacturers and suppliers.• The EN 45558 standard on critical raw materials and the EN 45559 standard on information can to some extent can be used directly on specific products and verified through document review.To ensure verifiability of the future material efficiency requirements, it is essential that standards are developed and harmonised; they can then be used to check product compliance with the ecodesign requirements. Furthermore, accredited test laboratories should be available to perform the compliance check. The contracts with the accredited test laboratories should also have a dynamic structure to ensure that all ecodesign requirements can be tested at the same laboratory and to utilise synergies among the different policy areas.

Kenya mainly depends on oil and hydro sources for electricity supply, however the rivers forhydropower and their tributaries are found in arid and semi-arid areas with erratic rainfallleading to frequent problems in stable delivery of electricity in the country. As for oil-basedelectricity generation, this is expensive and environmentally harmful. Kenya, however, has greatpotential for photo voltaics (PV)-based power generation since it is located near the equator andit receives plentiful insolation. PV technology is thus a viable option for electricity generation tomitigate the aforementioned electricity supply challenges, yet the exploitation of solar PV inKenya is still limited. This working paper analyses both the potential for integration of PV intothe Kenyan electricity generation mix and the sociotechnical, economic, political, andinstitutional and policy barriers, which limit PV integration. These barriers can be overcome withbetter and more robust policy regulations, additional investments in research and development,and coordination. Most noticeably, storage solutions and other elements of flexibility need tobe incorporated to balance the intermittent nature of electricity generation based on solar PV.

This study examines the development of industrial symbiosis through a practicalmodel for physical, organizational, and social interactions in six different cases from around the world. The results provide a framework that can be used by industrial symbiosis practitioners to facilitate the creation of synergy in industrial areas.

Resource efficiency is currently high on the European political agenda and the Ecodesign Directive has been identified as one of the instruments, which could help drive this agenda. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate if and how requirements for resource efficiency are currently implemented in the Ecodesign Directive? And what made it possible to include these types of requirements? A review of the requirements in the adopted implementing measures and voluntary agreements under the Ecodesign Directive showed that requirements targeting resource efficiency were included. However, these requirements were mainly information requirements. Sixteen of the implementing measures and voluntary agreements included information requirements targeting resource efficiency. Only five product groups included specific requirements targeting resource efficiency. Two detailed studies were made of the implementing measure covering vacuum cleaners and the voluntary agreement covering imaging equipment, since they both included resource efficiency requirements. The studies revealed that in both cases resource efficiency was regarded as a significant impact category. However, in both cases resource efficiency was considered secondary to energy efficiency, and it should be targeted at a later stage. Yet, in both cases resource efficiency requirements ended up in the final requirements. Hence, the identification of resource efficiency as a significant was not the sole reason for the uptake of the resource efficiency requirements. Other aspects were at play. Interviews with stakeholders indicated that pressure from stakeholders was a crucial aspect. In both cases, it was possible to pressure the industry by different means, which made them accept resource efficiency requirements. Furthermore, the fact that resource efficiency was on the political agenda also played a significant role. Finally, the existence of measurement and test standards and eco-labelling schemes were important for implementing the resource efficiency requirements.

Recommendations for Nordic policymakers:Resource related ecodesign obligations will be a necessary part of the future policy mix, though not all parts of the policy puzzle is yet in place. The Nordic policymakers can begin processes in order to realise strategic opportunities. Examples of such policies would be to continue the development of resource efficiency criteria in the Nordic eco-labelling and public procurement in order to pave the way for an uptake in EU eco-labelling and in the Ecodesign Directive. By continuously developing resource related criteria in voluntary policy instruments a platform for legal standard setting will be created that can be applied for ecodesign. See also the main report Addressing resource efficiency through the Ecodesign Directive - A review of opportunities and barriers at http://www.norden.org/sv/publikationer/publikationer/2014-511

The geographic scope of the project "Integrated strategies and policy instruments for retrofitting buildings to reduce primary energy use and GHG emissions" (INSPIRE) is on four European countries: Denmark, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. The building sector accounts for 40% to 50% of the final energy consumption in these countries. While in the European Union (EU) energy-related requirements for new buildings are constantly increasing (e.g. EPBD; nearly zero energy buildings up to 2020), the improvement of energy performance of the existing building stock constitutes a major challenge for the future, especially with relation to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals of 2050. The mastering of this challenge requires the identification of cost optimal retrofit strategies to achieve maximal reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions through and within building renovation.

The European Union has initiated a number of initiatives to improve resource efficiency in Europe. The Ecodesign Directive is one of the policy instruments that could aid the transition towards a more resource efficient economy. So far, the Directive has mainly been applied to set requirements related to energy efficiency, but there is potential for setting legal standards that increase product durability and promote the future re-use and recycling of components and materials. This paper examines the potential benefits and disadvantages in applying the Directive for this purpose, and analyzes the potential to apply certain types of legal standards. There is a need for continuous development of indicators and methods in order to allow for a broader range of legal standards in the future. The study provides some short and long term recommendations on the way forward. The European Union has initiated a number of initiatives to improve resource efficiency in Europe. The Ecodesign Directive is one of the policy instruments that could aid the transition towards a more resource efficient economy. So far, the Directive has mainly been applied to set requirements related to energy efficiency, but there is potential for setting legal standards that increase product durability and promote the future re-use and recycling of components and materials. This paper examines the potential benefits and disadvantages in applying the Directive for this purpose, and analyzes the potential to apply certain types of legal standards. There is a need for continuous development of indicators and methods in order to allow for a broader range of legal standards in the future. The study provides some short and long term recommendations on the way forward.

The chapter gives an introduction to the book "Environmental planning and management : tools for a sustainable development".

The chapter gives a overview of the concept of Life Cycle Thinking (LCT).

The chapter gives an introduction to Life Cycle Management (LCM) and shows how LCM can be practiced in different contexts and at different ambition levels.

This article shows the potential of using natural ventilation as a passive method of cooling buildings that are located in cold climate countries using Denmark as a case study. The energy saving potential of natural ventilation is found by performing thermal simulations of a household located in Vejle during cooling season, in the months of June, July and August. The dwelling belongs to a Danish project of passive houses denominated Komfort Husene, where its occupants claim there is no thermal comfort in summer time. The results show that the use of natural ventilation helps to reduce the demand of mechanical ventilation within the dwelling hence there is a potential of energy saving.

An old piece of conventional wisdom warns against unsustainable ‘white elephants’ in any attempts at international transferal, adoption or development of technologies in developing countries. After more than half a century of failed attempts to introduce technologies in such settings mostly through donor-driven projects and programs, it has become accepted that any disregard of social and local cultural preferences is likely to result in a low rate of technological adoption. Attention ought to therefore be brought upon the socio-cultural perspective when technology undergoes a process of transformation or co-creation in a movement from one context to another, i.e. from the North to South. The question here is how to affect a proactive intake of relevant knowledge in decision-making in a technological innovation process so as to increase the likelihood of developing sustainable solutions.A co-creation perspective recognizes technology as something that is shaped by the social actors configured around the various stages of technological development. When such co-creation processes involve actor configurations in complex multi-sectorial partnerships, however, the literature only sparingly offers guiding principles for involving input from multiple knowledge domains. Co-creation in multi-actor partnerships requires a nimble facilitation of such knowledge input, and implies a delicate challenge of linking users and producers: One the one hand are the actual users, potential users or those simply affected by a product or process in a developing country. On the other hand are those who design, develop and promote the technological solution. If the latter group is to follow the call for proactively taking in socio-cultural and user knowledge, what methods may be employed? This paper revisits the literature on ‘technology assessment’ in a search for inspiration. Technology assessment originally featured prominently as a discussion topic two decades ago, but is worth returning to because some principles embedded herein are especially relevant for sustainable co-creation process today targeting developing countries.Technology assessment helps assess the potential positive or negative impacts following in the wake of introducing a new technology of any conceivable type. It has an overall philosophy of reducing the cost of learning in society’s handling of new technologies, anticipating impacts and feeding these insights into actor strategies and decision-making processes. There is a variant of ‘constructive’ technology assessment that stands out as useful in multi-actor partnership settings. Placing emphasis on interactive processes, constructive technology assessment embraces active negotiation among involved parties in influencing technological change. In developing countries, technology assessment has received relatively little attention, but recent developments have expressed a ‘call-to-arms’ to tailor flexible approaches by ensuring the involvement of diverse stakeholders and citizens and continual learning among universities, NGO’s, firms and users/citizens.In addressing this ‘call-to-arms’, this paper:‐Identifies how technology assessment principles may be brought into new decision-making arenas outside of its traditional application area of e.g. parliamentary governance systems.Revisits the technology assessment discussion, exploring its contemporary relevance for co-creation processes for developing countries.‐‐ Explores constructive technology assessment in parti

This report constitutes part of the larger project Eco-design and Future Product Policy – Further research on Energyrelated Products. The objective was to investigate how nine policy instruments affect the development and environmental performance of household washing machines. The following policy instruments are investigated: 1. The Eco-design Directive2. The EU energy label Directive3. The WEEE Directive4. The RoHS Directive5. The REACH Regulation6. The EU Ecolabel Regulation7. The Nordic Swan8. Green Public Procurements (GPP)9. Voluntary Environmental Agreements (VA)

Different images of environment can be found in relation to various understandings of environmental problems and solutions, such as cleaner production, environmental management, cleaner products and sustainability. Ascribed to these images are: environment as a part of license to operate; environment as a part of quality management; environment as a part of corporate branding and environment as a part of customer relations. The different images are distributed and coexist throughout the organization, where they may be a potential for conflicting priorities or a platform for organizational learning supporting the development of sustainable business strategies. An analysis of the different images has been conducted related to a Danish case company based on an analytical framework with inspiration from Mintzbergs structures in five. In the case company, the understanding of environment as a technical issue as part of a formalized system created barriers for organizational learning in relation to sustainability, while the broader concept of social responsibility shaped a platform from which the employees could create meanings on sustainability more in line with their daily practices.

The demand on maritime cleantech may increase as result new regulations on maritime source air pollutants by International Maritime Organization and the European Union. As result, the demands will also increase for ship retrofit and cleantech installations. Such opportunities may be triggered by frontrunner shipyards and its interlinked maritime-servicing clusters and networks. Yet, in order to exploit these opportunities, conventional business literature usually refers to information availability and competence building. Yet, in the blossoming literature of eco-entrepreneurship both topics are barely discussed. This paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by studying the case of Frederikshavn district in Northern Denmark. This district can be considered as a paradigmatic case, from which generalizations can be made to other harbors in Western Europe. The article departs from the following research question:What is the current role of brokers and intermediaries in facilitating information concerning green shipping practices?The paper's main argument is that information availability, facilitated by public and private networks is a requirement for potential maritime cleantech eco-entrepreneurship. In this article, eco-entrepreneurship is understood as offering new services and products (either by an existing firm or by a start-up). Such services and products may address an environmental externality. The following are the case study's main results:- Two broker/intermediaries contribute to information flow between information rich domains (maritime associations, conferences, etc) to end users: Frederikshavn's district government (Kommune) and Frederikshavn Business Council (Ehrvervshus Nord).- "Information" in the Frederikshavn's context implies: new shipping environmental regulations, air and water pollution control technology specifications. Besides, information encompasses maritime staff competences on how to service new air emission control technology (e.g. scrubbers, SCR, etc...), as well as alternative energy sources engines (e.g. LNG, hydrogen fuel cells). The case may provide insights on how eco-entrepreneurial opportunities are recognized with intermediaries? support. According to Baron (2010, 124) a key question in entrepreneurial recognition is 'Why are some people and not others able to discover specific opportunities'? This author considers that an answer to this question resides in access to and best use of information. Furthermore, access to information can result from active search, alertness to opportunities, and entrepreneur's previous experience. The Frederikshavn case study may add a fourth element: access to information can result from the facilitation provided by intermediaries.

Due to a combination of reasons such as climate change, peak oil, security, etc., especially EU and several national governments have an increased focus on a transformation of the current energy systems through reduction of energy consumption and increased use of renewable energy sources.In 2005 approximately 20% of the world’s total energy consumption was consumed by lighting (Brown, 2010) which calls for attention to how energy consumption from lighting may be reduced. A strategy for phasing out the worst-performing light bulbs for domestic use is included in the European Ecodesign directive (2005/32/EC), constantly raising the performance standards. Various lighting technologies are now on the market, however with fluctuating quality, which, among other things, affect the rate households adopting new technologies (Krantz and Bladh, 2008) (Wall and Crosbie, 2009). However, aspects such as culture and routine also seem to influence the adaptation rate (Wall and Crosbie 2009, Krantz and Bladh, 2008, Gram-Hanssen 2005), and these aspects may not be as recognized in the strategies.In Denmark, people have to some extent been hoarding the incandescent light bulbs through the steps of banning the incandescent bulb[1], which seem to imply that some people oppose this move. However, some people are reaching out for the new lighting technologies, especially the light emitting diodes (LED), and it is interesting to analyze why these people, the so-called front runners, have chosen to incorporate this technology in their homes. This paper will present the initial studies of how front-runners have incorporated the technology, why they have, and how/whether it has influenced their everyday life practices of which lighting engage with. The study is done through semi-structured interviews inspired by social practice theory (Gram-Hanssen 2011, Røpke 2009 and Shove & Pantzar 2005) and domestication theory (Pantzar 1997, Lethonen 2003). In this way, actors and factors are identified that have influenced people towards a system-configuration that ‘seem to work’ for them. These factors can be difficult to generalize due to the focus on front-runners who may not represent the average household in this sense, and the conclusions should be considered as results of an extreme/exemplary case study (Yin, 2003).

The EU Directive on Energy-related Products (2009/125/EC) sets the frame for implementing ecodesign requirements for energy-using and energy-related products. The aim is to contribute to sustainable development by increasing energy efficiency and the level of environmental protection, while at the same time increasing the security of energy supply. The ecodesign requirements of the Directive are put forward in Implementing Measures (IM) based on comprehensive preparatory studies. This paper focuses on the experience with the IM so far. In January 2011, eleven IM have been adopted. These IM focus on energy efficiency, power consumption, water consumption, information requirements and in some cases quality and performance issues. All IM only take the use phase of the products life time into consideration. The ambition level of the IM is analysed through a detailed case study of the IM for televisions. It is argued that the IM have not succeeded in setting up sufficient ecodesign requirements, as only one life cycle phase and mainly one environmental impact category is addressed. The result of an analysis of televisions (TVs) on the market shows that new technologies have been developed that reduce power consumption significantly, and these technologies have been assessed not being mature enough to be included in the IM and the preparatory studies. Hence, it is concluded in this article that the process around the Ecodesign Directive has been too slow to be considered a driver for increasing material and energy efficiency of televisions. Furthermore, it can be concluded that technology development has been a more important driver during the past five years.

In this paper, the promotion of sustainable products through the sharing of best practices in product chains is examined. The general understanding is that the interactions in the supply chain are changing from a traditional focus on the supply of goods “just in time” towards a focus on value creation for the different stakeholders and closer collaboration and communication between manufacturers, suppliers, consumers, and retailers. Supply Chain Management can be divided into two main categories with rather different focus areas: ”risk minimization” related to environmental and social impacts upstream in the supply chain, and “business development” of sustainable products and product service systems. Sharing best practice in partnerships is an example of the latter, but Supply Chain Management goes beyond product chains and into partnerships where the focus is not on one main company but on the partnership between several stakeholders in the same or in interlinked value chains. The laundry chain is chosen as an example in which the partnerships may include several product chains; i.e., the supply chain of detergents and washing machines, and may involve, e.g., retailers to facilitate a development of and demand for sustainable products – in other words the creation of new markets.

Attention has for long been on developing new devices for both cooking, cleaning and leisure continuously giving consumers more choices, in trying to save time and make everyday life more convenient. Thus, there seem to be a close relation between an increasing variety of energy using products and the way we live. When opting for a low carbon society, the innovation dynamics of everyday life products as well as consumption and practice patterns become an important field of investigation. Hence, to approach consumption aspects of using and interacting with energy using products, it is important to understand what practices the products are a part of when in use. According to Røpke (2009) “Primarily, people are practitioners who indirectly, through the performance of various practices, draw on resources”. Therefore, in order to make consumers aware of their actions in an environmental perspective, the environmental impacts of their practice has to become “visible” when applying different products. Thus, if a certain practice has severe environmental impacts, it may not help just changing the products. Routines connected to the use of the product may also need to be changed. However, practices are hard to kill (Røpke, 2009), so in order to make people change practice, alternate routines that work has to be proposed and accepted. Practice theory can help understanding how practices work, and thus clarifying what has to be included in a study of potentials for a sustainable transition.Social practices and the aspect of consumers being practitioners is an interesting subject to investigate further in relation to Geels’ Multi Level Perspective (MLP) on technological transitions. As the role of user practices in system change seems to be neglected in the MLP of transitions (Genus and Coles, 2008), analyzing practices around the use of energy using products may contribute to an elaboration of transition theory. Although Genus and Coles may not be referring to practices of daily life as such, it may be useful as well to include, as daily consumption are an important aspect of socio-technical regimes, which constitute the meso-level in the MLP framework. This may contribute to clarification of the contribution and interaction of various groups at different analytical levels and thus contribute to the operationalization of the MLP framework, which are requested by some critics (Cole and Genus, 2008).

Eco-innovation encompasses the “creative destruction” of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Research on eco-innovation promotion highlights the role of university in supporting industry and government partnerships to achieve sustainability. However, scant literature analyses the role of science parks in promoting eco-innovation. This study uses qualitative data gathered in two units of analysis: Panama Canal Authority and City of Knowledge Science Park. The study examines how Triple Helix interactions have built the regional system of eco-innovation at the Panama Canal. Overall, the research found that the Panamanian national innovation system facilitates eco-innovation by: providing research and development, building competence and financing of innovation processes. The “green maritime route” is an example of institutional eco-innovation promoted by the Panama Canal Authority with insights from consultants, universities and donnor agencies. The proximity of the science park to the canal, has hitherto not yielded with the creation of a “green cluster”, which could be a precedent to promote eco-innovations. These findings suggest that, Triple Helix interactions are not institutionalized but take place through adhoc projects. Further, science parks could become mediators in Triple Helix interactions between industry, universities and governments. Eco-innovation encompasses the “creative destruction” of unsustainable patterns of production and consumption. Research on eco-innovation promotion highlights the role of university in supporting industry and government partnerships to achieve sustainability. However, scant literature analyses the role of science parks in promoting eco-innovation. This study uses qualitative data gathered in two units of analysis: Panama Canal Authority and City of Knowledge Science Park. The study examines how Triple Helix interactions have built the regional system of eco-innovation at the Panama Canal. Overall, the research found that the Panamanian national innovation system facilitates eco-innovation by: providing research and development, building competence and financing of innovation processes. The “green maritime route” is an example of institutional eco-innovation promoted by the Panama Canal Authority with insights from consultants, universities and donnor agencies. The proximity of the science park to the canal, has hitherto not yielded with the creation of a “green cluster”, which could be a precedent to promote eco-innovations. These findings suggest that, Triple Helix interactions are not institutionalized but take place through adhoc projects. Further, science parks could become mediators in Triple Helix interactions between industry, universities and governments.