Driving the circular economy through public environmental and energy R&D: Evidence from SMEs in the European Union

Pablo Garrido-Prada, Helena Lenihan, Justin Doran, Christian Rammer, Mauricio Perez-Alaniz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Governments at the EU and the member state level are placing increased emphasis on public research and development (R&D) for energy and the environment to advance a circular economy (CE). To achieve CE goals, it is critical to engage SMEs as they represent the vast majority of enterprises in the EU. To date, there is a lack of evidence regarding the impact of these public R&D investments on SMEs' CE activities. We address this gap by analysing the impact of public environmental and energy R&D on CE implementation and investment by SMEs. The study draws from a multi-level database of 10,618 SMEs across 28 EU member states for the period 2013–2015 from the Flash Eurobarometer 441 survey and country-level data from other EU sources. Employing a mixed-level probit regression, we find that the knowledge generated by public environmental and energy R&D, defined as country-level investments in this activity from 2004 to 2015, positively affects SMEs' implementation of CE activities. Additionally, the study finds that public environmental and energy R&D affects the level of SMEs' investment in CE activities negatively, suggesting that more public R&D can substitute for the financial efforts that SMEs have to take when implementing CE activities.

Original languageEnglish
Article number106884
Pages (from-to)-
JournalEcological Economics
Volume182
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2021

Keywords

  • Circular economy
  • Environmental and energy R&D
  • European Union
  • Flash Eurobarometer
  • Multilevel modelling
  • SMEs

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