ECO-INNOVATION AS A PART OF THE GREEN ECONOMY IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC.

The global environmental challenges solution, such as climate change and natural resources scarcity, they are part of innovation policy, where the eco-innovation plays an important role. The OECD Green Growth Strategy recommends that green growth policies should encourage innovation, as this can enhance efficiency in the use of natural capital and foster new economic opportunities from the emergence of new green activities. The European Union has begun to track the eco-innovation performance of Member States in 2010, when the project The Eco-innovation Observatory quantified Eco-Innovation Score board. The index evaluates and compares the performance of national economies in eco-innovation. In 2016, the Slovak Republic reached the value of Eco-Innovation Score board 41.7 and placed on a 37 place. Objective of the article is to analyze the status of eco-innovation in business practice in Slovakia. Subject of the analysis are small, medium and large engineering companies in Slovakia, selected from company database of Information and Statistics Institute - INFOSTAT. Till October 2016 713 small, 297 medium and 125 large companies met the criteria,. The survey was conducted on a selective sample of 162 companies. We evaluated the results using Spearman coefficient in ISPSS 2.0. We came to the conclusion that the 109 companies realized the eco-innovation activities in business practice, such as the implementation of innovative processes and procedures in production. The eco-innovation belongs to their basic value. The engineering and automotive industries are considered as the most ecoinnovation industries in the national economy of Slovakia. The authors acknowledge the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the MESRS SR for the financial support via contract No. 028UMB-4/2015 Green economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]