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The introduction and adoption of green technologies are considered the most cost effective way to reduce environmental pressure without compromising economic competitiveness. The scientific literature has emphasized the crucial role played by diffusion pathways of green technologies along the supply value chain, but empirical quantitative findings on the effectiveness of green technologies in improving environmental performance are scarce. The objective of this paper is to highlight the role of inter-sectoral linkages in shaping the influence played by eco-innovations on sectoral environmental performance. Empirical findings show that both the direct and indirect effects of eco-innovations help reduce environmental stress and that the strength of these impacts varies across the value chain depending on the technology adopted and the type of pollutant under scrutiny. The main implications we can deduce are that, first both corporate and policy governance strategies should specifically address the goal of maximizing environmental gains that can be achieved through the development and adoption of clean technologies along the supply chain, and second both strategies should be coordinated in order to minimize the costs for reducing environmental pressures.

This paper aims to analyse the evolution of energy efficiency systems for the residential sector of EU countries over the past twenty years and the associated process of structural change occurred in EU economies. To this purpose, we develop a set of indicators to measure some significant characteristics of the energy efficiency systems and map European countries in terms of four dimensions: energy system, innovation system, policy mix design and export competitiveness. Building on these indicators we develop a cluster analysis identifying non-arbitrary homogeneous country groups according to several characteristics in order to investigate the co-evolution of technological trajectories, energy use performance and structural change in this specific domain. Results suggest the distinction of EU countries into four groups, that are individually and comparatively scrutinized shedding light on how the four dimensions here considered dynamically evolved and interacted within and across countries. Empirical findings reveal that the design of the domestic policy mix may play a key role in shaping technological trajectories and structural change processes that in turns allow an increase in external competitiveness performance. Such positive impact appears to be closely related to the quality and quantity of international relationships with main economic partners.

This paper aims at investigating the main effects on EU employment dynamics related to private and public actions for energy efficiency. The econometric analysis relies on a sector-based panel dataset for 15 EU countries over the time span 1995–2009. The empirical analysis shows that after accounting for the role played by sectoral output growth, investment and innovation activities, sectoral energy efficiency gains display a negative effect on employment growth, in particular in energy intensive industries. On the contrary, we find that public actions towards energy efficiency may produce positive effects on employment dynamics. In particular, the higher incidence of taxation on energy costs, the effort towards energy efficiency gains realized in the public sector industries and the implementation of a comprehensive policy mix for energy efficiency at the country level, are factors positively influencing employment growth. This evidence highlights the complexity of the nexus between energy efficiency and employment dynamics, suggesting that superior employment performances can be achieved when complementarity effects between productivity enhancing activities and energy efficiency actions are realized.