Introduction
Climate Change and Low-Carbon Innovation
Given the global dimensions of the climate challenge and its extraordinary growth in emissions, it is clear that low-carbon innovation in China is an urgent priority, both for China and the world as a whole.
Conversely, there are exceptional opportunities for low-carbon innovation in China, based on the strength of its economic growth, the great improvements in its national innovation system, the relative lack of high-carbon lock-in and the urgent national pressures towards environmental sustainability. There are also, therefore, enormous opportunities for international collaboration based on mutual benefit, particularly in the context of the current global economic crisis. Such low carbon innovation will be crucial if China is to ‘leapfrog’ to a new, ecologically sustainable model of development.
‘Low-carbon innovation’, however, means much more than just new technology. But neither is it just a matter of behavioural change, based on individual choices. Rather new technologies and new social practices interact closely and both will be needed. Similarly, new breakthroughs in high-technology solutions may well be important, but they by no means exhaust the relevant forms innovation. In particular, one form of innovation that brings together both technological and social innovations and so is likely to be especially important is what Harvard Business School’s Clayton Christensen (2000) calls ‘disruptive innovation’.
Disruptive Innovation
'Disruptive innovation' involves production of 'cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives… often produced by non-traditional players that target previously ignored customers' and/or use in novel contexts (Willis, Webb & Wilsdon 2007), but which have the medium-term potential for radical restructuring of economic sectors. As a report from the UK’s leading innovation think-tank, NESTA, has noted (ibid.), this capacity for profound socioeconomic change is precisely what is needed for an effective and timely low-carbon shift. Such innovation also resonates with changes in innovation practice towards the importance of users and open business models, so maximizing its impact.
China
‘Disruptive’ low-carbon innovation could be particularly important for China, for a number of reasons:
While improving rapidly, China’s capacity for hi-tech innovation in many crucial areas relevant to low-carbon issues is still in development, while low-carbon innovation is needed urgently. While hi-tech innovation capacity will – and must – continue to improve (including through international collaboration), there are also great and immediate gains to be made from innovation based on cheaper forms of existing technologies and their use in new settings;
As Christensen has shown, disruptive innovation has the potential to create new leaders in industries of the future. There can be no doubt that low-carbon innovation will create new industries and profoundly change the structure of existing ones. It is thus greatly in China’s national interest to take the lead in establishing these new sectors through disruptive innovation;
Increasing disruptive low-carbon innovation in China would be to capitalize upon what is already a great advantage of Chinese innovation, namely its capacity for cost innovation of cheaper alternatives (Zeng & Williamson 2007), and would provide a strategic focus to many of these businesses in terms of the development of the low-carbon industries of the future;
Finally, as a developing country, low-tech and/or low-cost solutions may often be of greater immediate relevance and assistance than hi-tech ones to much of the Chinese population. Increasing efforts in such innovation may thus serve a domestic low-carbon shift more effectively, especially in the short-term.In all these ways, therefore, low-carbon innovation in China has the potential to become world-leading, for the good of both China itself and the broader global effort on climate change.
But this raises the urgent questions: ‘How can this potential be made a reality?’ And ‘What can be learnt and achieved by international collaboration on these issues?’ This website brings together material exploring these crucial issues and aims to act as a forum for those both involved in and researching disruptive low-carbon innovation in China.
