Barriers to Eco-Innovation in the LED Sector: A Multilevel Perspective

The aim of this paper is to analyse barriers to eco-innovation in the LED sector and to formulate strategy and policy recommendations to overcome them. It is based on case studies of European LED firms, and uses the multi-level perspective (MLP) to formulate these recommendations. The results are relevant for both LED companies and policy makers. We identified 18 major barriers to LED eco-innovation at regime level that pertain to four categories (LED market, Labour market, Financial market, and Public policies). At niche level, 8 major barriers have been identified pertaining to three categories (Technological resources, Human resources, and Financial resources). The interactions between regime-level barriers on niche-level ones are presented in appendices. Suggestions to overcome these barriers include both demand-pull and policy-push instruments. This paper is the first one to use the MLP to analyse and suggest solutions to overcome barriers to eco-innovation in the LED sector.