TY - JOUR
T1 - Driving the circular economy through public environmental and energy R&D
T2 - Evidence from SMEs in the European Union
AU - Garrido-Prada, Pablo
AU - Lenihan, Helena
AU - Doran, Justin
AU - Rammer, Christian
AU - Perez-Alaniz, Mauricio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Authors
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Circular economy
KW - Environmental and energy R&D
KW - European Union
KW - Flash Eurobarometer
KW - Multilevel modelling
KW - SMEs
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096955620&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106884
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106884
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85096955620
SN - 0921-8009
VL - 182
SP - -
JO - Ecological Economics
JF - Ecological Economics
M1 - 106884
ER -