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Abstract In recent years, the search for innovative pathways towards sustainability has been brought to the forefront of international agenda settings. While international organisations and institutions, such as the United Nations and the European Union (EU), mobilised around the grand challenge of sustainability, on both a local and a global scale, eco-innovation as a key concept (or buzzword) started emerging and consolidating in policy documents and funding schemes. By focusing on the European context, this paper aims to explore how the discourse of eco-innovation has been framed by the EU research funding programmes Horizon 2020 since the introduction of the 2011 Eco-Innovation Action Plan. The review was conducted by using content analysis methods designed to disclose the framing of eco-innovation in the EU programmes. The article presents three main findings: the eco-innovation discourse in the EU programmes has mostly become constructed around the notion of eco-efficiency; eco-innovation is overwhelmingly framed as a dialectic between the state vs private actors whereas stakeholders in the third sector such as cooperatives, non-governmental organisations, social enterprises, and community-based initiatives are largely neglected; eco-innovation as a buzzword has been losing relevance through the years in favour of the new rising discourse of the 'circular economy'. The article concludes by suggesting that the construction of a new discourse on circular economy may provide opportunities to embrace more eco-centric and inclusive approaches to economics, towards stronger sustainability and the more systematic inclusion of not-for-profit organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental sustainability is an everlasting concern of our modern society and has been gaining importance in practice and academia over the last decades. For being a major contributor to global environmental pollution, stakeholder pressure on manufacturing companies is increasing to reduce their environmental impacts, while simultaneously delivering high value goods and services at competitive prices, understood as increasing their eco-efficiency. However, complex interrelations between the economic and environmental performance dimensions in production systems create a non-transparency to decision makers, hindering them to translate this strategic target into improvement measures on a shop-floor level. Discrete-event simulation has been established as a promising method to solve this problem, although current approaches are insufficient for focusing only on energy aspects and being too complex in their application. This paper proposes a decision support consisting of two elements: 1) A novel discrete-event simulation approach that seamlessly integrates LCA with common economic evaluations by embedding the Ecoinvent LCI database, while considering all relevant eco-efficiency drivers within a production system; and 2) a system analysis and modelling procedure supporting its application and the identification of appropriate improvement measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: With the increasing environmental issues, now cleaner production has been implemented across all the regions of China. During this process, regional governments have played a leading role for promoting cleaner production. Main measures include coordinating the various stakeholders, providing financial support, stipulating appropriate policies and conducting capacity building programs. Such an innovative initiative is quite unique and should be further studied. This paper reflects such a perspective through a case study of Liaoning province. We first introduce the main initiatives for the promotion of cleaner production in Liaoning and then identify the key barriers. Our focus is to provide suggestions for future improvements. Finally we make our conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]