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Background and Motivation

There is broad consensus that tackling the increasing global environmental problems needs the support of technological innovations. In consequence, environmental technologies are regarded as being one of the fastest growing markets on global scale. Since there is a wide range of technologies that can contribute to progress in this field, there is a strong need for prospective research agendas which are setting priorities in transparent way.

Against this background, the project “Roadmap Environmental Technologies 2020” will support the process of identifying strategic policy options for promoting developments and commercial applications in the field of environmental technologies. The time horizon is the year 2020, but to give orientation for long-term funding strategies, it is necessary to look beyond that horizon at least in a rough way.

The project, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, is running from April 2007 until March 2009. It is carried out by the Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) at the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe with support from the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology.

Contact

Jens Schippl, Christian Dieckhoff, Nora Gronwald, Armin Grunwald, Nicola Hartlieb, Juliane Jörissen, Ursula Mielicke, Oliver Parodi, Tim Reinhardt, Volker Stelzer

Institute of Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe Tel. +49 7247 82-3994 • Fax +49 7247 82-4806E-mail: Jens.Schippl@itas.fzk.de

2008 INTERNATIONALCONFERENCE

Exploring relevant mid- to long-term technological developments in the environmental sector implies a combination of a problem-oriented methodology (which environmental problems require solutions?) and a technical-oriented approach (which options and application will be offered by technological progress?). This is taken into account in all phases of the project.

Results

Phase I of the project has been completed; the outcome is a comprehensive State-of-the-Art-Report where relevant environmental problems are being presented along with corresponding technologies contributing to solving or mitigating these problems. This is being done for seven environmental fields of action: Climate protection, air pollution control, water management, soil protection, increase of resource productivity, waste management and preservation of nature and biodiversity. It should be noted that energy technologies are not in the focus of this project.

Roadmap Environmental Technologies 2020

Conclusions

Up to now the project results illustrate that both innovations in environmental technologies as well as transfer of technologies are crucial for sustainable development. All basic pillars of the sustainability-concept have to be addressed in this context: the environmental sector as well as economic and social or cultural aspects.

In consequences, it becomes obvious that especially in the environmental sector, in many cases new technologies are a necessary but not a sufficient factor for successful innovations. For a reliable identification of future technology pathways and corresponding R&D strategies not only technologies but also non-technical factors (markets, demands, regulations, social acceptance etc.) have to be considered.

Apart of that, results of Phase I indicate that the complexity of environmental technologies is a challenge for the Roadmapping-Process itself. The combination of a State-of-the-Art-Report, an extensive survey and workshops for validation and longer-term assessment seems to be the appropriate approach to cope with this challenge.

Methodology

The project is structured in two phases: 1. In Phase I the state-of-the-art in the field of

environmental technologies is analysed on basis of literature and interviews.

2. In Phase II promising future technological developments are investigateda. with the help of an extensive survey focussing

on the mid-term perspective; b. with the help of several topic-specific

workshops that intend to look in more visionary way beyond 2020.