Foresight on environmental technologies: options for the prioritization of future research funding – lessons learned from the project “Road-map Environmental Technologies 2020+”

There is broad consensus that tackling the increasing global environmental problems will require the support of technology. Consequently, environmental technologies are regarded as one of the fastest growing global markets. Owing to the wide range of technologies available that can contribute to progress in this field, there is a high demand for prospective research setting priorities in a transparent way. Against this background, the presented study aimed at supporting the process of identifying and recommending options for the prioritisation of future research funding. Taking Germany as an example, this was done by analysing chances and perspectives of different environmental technologies as well as courses of action in combination with the aim of reaching new markets for seven environmental fields of action: Climate protection, air pollution control, water management, soil conservation, protection of scarce resources, waste management and biodiversity. As a key-element of the study, future environmental challenges and promising future technological developments were identified by an extensive literature review and internet research, followed by a large-scale expert survey and several topic-specific workshops. Results demonstrate that one focus of future funding should be put on technology development for meeting the demands of emerging and developing countries. Thus, an appropriate response for the German environmental industry to such global challenges requires the provision of exportable environmental technologies, although this will change the requirement profiles of the technologies. Many high-tech-products, developed for the European market, are not directly applicable or invaluable for emerging and developing countries. The study also recommends that funding should not concentrate on individual technologies, but rather on holistic views of technologies, processes, material and energy flows. Furthermore, the estimations of market potential for the investigated technologies are closely connected to the ecological problems and their social perception in different countries. Basis strategies should be developed, which take into account the technical development as well as the main drivers and constrains.