Schumpeterian dynamics of propagation of green eco-platforms
Updated: Apr 10, 2020
John Mathews is pleased to share this paper on the Schumpeterian dynamics of propagation of green eco-platforms, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Economics ("JEE", part of the Springer Nature group). It is based on the paper delivered to the International Schumpeter Society conference in 2018 (staged in Seoul, Korea), where Professor Mathews was awarded the biannual Schumpeter Prize for his book Global Green Shift and cumulative work on the Schumpeterian dynamics of the green shift. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that discusses the green shift in terms of the propagation of green eco-platforms. The author would like to acknowledge with thanks the suggestion from Professor Martin Kenney (UC Davis) that a platform framework would be worth exploring in relation to the global green shift.
The paper can be read at https://rdcu.be/b3rhp and is also available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00191-020-00669-5
The core argument of the JEE paper is generalized as follows. Fundamentally it is cost considerations and their predictability, and expectation of costs reducing according to the learning curve, that lie at the heart of the business of greening. This is a very different perspective from the one that sees greening as a “return to nature”. On the contrary, the argument developed here is that greening involves the extension of urbanization, electrification and manufacturing to further industrial sectors and to further industrializing countries. Greening, it is argued, involves transforming existing sectors like food production to the controlled environment and controlled inputs associated with manufacturing, in a way that is replicable, scalable and practicable. It is applicable at multiple levels – from that of firms linked via a green platform, to that of industrial parks (eco-industrial parks) and extending to the level of whole cities (eco-cities) and ultimately of the economy as a whole. (Thanks to Dr Elizabeth Thurbon for the suggestion.)