Austria 2025 – Environmental Innovation in Austria. Performance and Success Factors

Over the past decades, the concept of sustainable development has been largely internalised by politics and society and it has been increasingly recognised that current production and consumption patterns may not be viable for the future. At the international level, strategies for environmentally sustainable growth are discussed ("OECD Green Growth Strategy", "Europe 2020 Strategy"), highlighting the relevance of environmental innovations, i.e., the development of environmental and resource-saving technologies, for sustainable development. The Austrian environmental technology industry is a highly competitive growth sector, characterised by strong export orientation and a high propensity to innovate. Moreover, it is characterised by a continuously increasing internationalisation. In this project, an ex-post analysis of the performance of Austrian companies in the field of environmental innovations is conducted based on the OECD patent databases, and success factors for strengthening the innovative activity are identified based on a survey.