Innovation and the Rise of Green Patents
Producing bioethanol out of agricultural waste or non-edible plants on an industrial scale. This is the challenge won by Biochemtex and Beta Renewables, a company leading the biomass industry in the production of biofuels and biochemicals at competitive prices, which controls more than 1,000 patents.
At the end of 2012, near Vercelli, in Northern Italy, the first plant in the world for the production of second-generation bioethanol started operations. It's based on the Proesa technology, and is part of a project supported by the European Commission within its Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technology. This innovation allows the manufacturing of fuel at lower costs than oil-based fuels. It doesn't crowd out food crops, reduces dependency on fossil fuels, generates biogas – an additional energy source – as byproduct of the production process, and minimizes environmental impact, thanks to a perfect balancing between the CO2 emitted in the industrial process and that fixed by biomass. The Proesa technology and its process are covered by 14 families of patents, four of which are public.
The case of Beta Renewables provides elements of reflection on one of green economy's most striking phenomena, i.e. the marked increase in the number of green patents that have to do with renewable power-generation, energy saving, air and water pollution abatement, waste management, transport efficiency, and energy efficiency in construction and lighting systems.
In the OECD, the number of green patents has grown by more than 1,000% in two decades. In 2011, there were 16,033 patent applications pending at the European Patent Office (EPO). Most of the increase is due to the development of renewable energy, energy stocking, design and management of energy systems, and waste management. Only 15% of the total comes from SMEs, which usually resort to different green strategies, such as environmental certification (e.g. EMAS, the European Management Auditing Scheme) or the eco-label registration.
From 1990 to 2011, the share of green patents on total patents grew from 5.8% to 10.6%. Applications for green patents have also grown significantly among BRICs, where they are 5.2% of the total. In Europe, the growth of green patents has accelerated over the last ten years, but innovation is concentrated in few hotspots: certain regions of Germany and the UK, metropolitan areas, and regions hosting national capitals. Green patenting is on the rise in Italy, too. Between 2009 and 2014, EPO received 2,210 Italian applications for green patents, which account for about 9.5% of the total of Italy's patents.
Promoting green innovation has become a fundamental national and international priority. For this purpose, certain national patent offices have started to introduce streamlined and shortened procedures to obtain a patent, thereby cutting time from application to grant from a few years to a few months. The UK was the first to institute such a program in May 2009, followed by Australia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the US in the same year. More recently, Canada (2011), Brazil and China (2012) have also launched similar programs.
The competitiveness of national and regional economic systems increasingly relies on the sustainable use of natural resources, environmental capital conservation and reduced exposure to climate shocks. The development of patents linked to environmental-friendly technologies allows the introduction of products and processes that are more efficient in terms of resource use and make countries less dependent from traditional energy sources, while increasing overall competitiveness.