Ques-   green innovation:  Green has become a Buzz word today. Buzz......z........z.....z.......z......z... is a low and continuous sound  (as a bee  makes). It should not become irritating.

Innovation when 'greened' implies a newer, creative thinking.. towards eco friendly - service to mother earthy (by way of developments - products, processes, concepts, applications and so on)..

                          Ques-  The key question ... is how to measure green innovation?

If it is process?  consider efficiency of old process vs that of newer process

If product;  one may do it on life cycle basis?  Environmental degradation - earlier, and how (how much) reduced in newer innovative product.

Concept:  Say by way of Carbon footprints? ( can be both +ve and -ve (Green Innovation shall be friendlier - by not free!

Applications- Same as products

                            Ques---- R&D is available

R& D of product   has been probably answered above

R&D pf processes:  New effectiveness of Green Innovation / total innovation

R&D of Concepts:  Metrics of Patents  (Rise!)

Hope it serves

First of all, it dependes on how you define "green innovation". A green innovation may be a new technology, product, process, business model, etc. Although many articles refer to green innovation in general terms (and arbitrarily choose a measurement) I believe this distinction is needed.

Anyway, green patents have been widely used as a measure o green innovation. Both the OECD and the IPC Green Inventory have identified a set of IPC classess the refers to patented environmentally sound technlogies. I think patents are much more reliable than R&D expenditures and are also easier to access and available for long time series.

Thankd for your information!  I think a green innovation company is also a responsible company.

Also, it is important to distinguish between input measures (R&D, n° of researchers etc) and output measures (product features, patents, performances). Patents are a good proxy but not easy to be managed. The problem to dealing with green patents is that they not always cover emergent and complex (cross-cutting) technological domains (see biofuels or energy efficiency).

Business dictionary.com defines Metric as:

Definition of metrics: Standards of measurement by which efficiency, performance, progress, or quality of a plan, process, or product can be assessed.

Continuing from my post above:

We choose Measures with options either  intra-company and inter company

intra-company ratios viz:

effective Green Innovations / total innovations

Green effectiveness of New Innovation / total impact of innovation

Metrics of Patents:   Green Patents/ Total Patents

Carbon footprints saved/ total impact in terms of environment degradation

Inter- company

A Measure:   say in a city or industry or country or year

The answers above are very interesting. Thank you.

See the European Union's Eco-Innovation Scoreboard and related reports via this link : http://www.eco-innovation.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=34

The answers above are a good cross section of views on green innovation. I will only suggest adding consideration of some features of ecosystem. Don't do harm. Green innovation processes should focus ways of achieving their ends with minimal resource usage, maximum re-usage, minimal negative impact, inclusion of a wider social perspective. These are all easy to operationalise as measurable features, apart from the social dimension. Social impact measurement is well establishes, but how to show harmonization with social concerns (needs dialogue, setting agendas and priorities, then showing responsiveness).

thanks you all for the replies. However, I think that still there is no mention to the distinction between eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness. You can define green innovation a car that consumes less fuel, but a car still remains an artefact that is not eco-effective. The rebound literature proved that green innovation is usually framed in terms of eco-efficiency that is not sufficient to assure sustainability in the long run. On the contrary, in many cases more efficient technologies actually increase the use of resources instead of reducing it!

Basically, eco-innovation framework allows for a more efficient use of resources and for promoting the transition toward a greener economy. Nevertheless, rebound issues and behavioural factors in general, may strongly affect efficiency gains as well as policy-induced factor substitution. Thus, it is necessary to address also the effectiveness and targeting of eco-innovation and environmental policies, especially in domains with multiple coexisting instruments addressing different sides (agents' behaviour, production, technology adoption etc.). This topic is generating a flourishing literature...