The environment, innovation and industry: a case study of south Wales

To achieve sustainable development there is a need for policies to make the economic-ecological relationship a more positive coupling. This paper concentrates on the part that innovation may play in helping to achieve sustainability. The paper examines the sources of variability in firm innovation and size, regulation and sector are identified as key variables. Using survey data the stimuli and the type of environmental improvements that companies have made are explored. The results indicate that large, permit-based regulation and leading sector companies are nearly twice as likely as other companies to have made environmental improvements.