Green Innovation as a Catalyst for Sustainable Development

A shift towards decarbonized energy systems, buildings, transportation, industries, land and financial systems requires deep structural changes: innovation in cleantech needs to be developed, proven technologies need to be deployed on a large scale, institutions and markets must be reformed to support the new system, and technological advances must be embedded into the fabric of societies.

Although many cleantech innovations are already available, they often have a hard time reaching the market. Innovation gaps exist from conceptual ideas to solutions that are ready to be scaled. Proven cleantech solutions that are ready to be brought to commercial scale frequently grapple with an inadequate capital supply and asymmetric information, which can cause market failure. The problem is not the availability of cleantech innovations per se, but rather the narrow and slow diffusion throughout the economy and society that limits their impact in efforts to tackle global sustainability challenges.

Also in Israel, where numerous technologies are invented, only few break through. In order to overcome this, more attention must be devoted to policy strategies and instruments leveraging the commercialization and scaling of affordable and reliable zero-emission technologies. This paper considers the Israeli commercialization challenge to deliver empirical insights into a problem that exists around the world: getting cleantech from the lab to the market.

It identifies four key areas for government action to help innovators meet the challenge of commercializing cleantech:

1. Implement innovation support and regulatory instruments leveraging the transition.
2. Support the initiation of a cleantech growth fund and strengthen funding support for early stage cleantech.
3. Support strategic cleantech collaboration for market entrance.
4. Show global climate leadership and accelerate the problem-driven development and deployment of cleantech solutions.

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