Measuring progress in eco-innovation. CEPS Working Document No. 409/June 2015

Eco-innovation has been identified as one of the key drivers of change that need to be harnessed for a sustainable future. Given the complexity of eco-innovation as a concept, there are various challenges to measuring its progress. This paper briefly explores the evolution of the concept of eco-innovation and emphasises its role in the EU 2020 strategy. It then provides an overview of the different measurement approaches and challenges associated with identifying and using indicators for measuring progress in eco-innovation. Within this context, the paper describes the added value and key features of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way in which policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for green economy and eco-innovation. The web tool was developed on the basis of a systematic overview by the NETGREEN research team of the large and fragmented body of work in the field of green economy indicators. The paper concludes with a number of messages for policy-makers in the field of the green economy.

Dissolved organic carbon in sediments of the central Arctic Ocean collected during POLARSTERN cruise ARK-XXVII/3 from August-September 2012

Marine organic matter (OM) sinks from surface waters to the seafloor via the biological pump. Benthic communities, which use this sedimented OM as energy and carbon source, produce dissolved organic matter (DOM) in the process of remineralization, enriching the sediment porewater with fresh DOM compounds. We hypothesized that in the oligotrophic deep Arctic basin the molecular signal of freshly deposited primary produced OM is restricted to the surface sediment pore waters which should differ from bottom water and deeper sediment pore water in DOM composition. This study focused on: 1) the molecular composition of the DOM in sediment pore waters of the deep Eurasian Arctic basins, 2) whether the signal of marine vs. terrigenous DOM is represented by different compounds preserved in the sediment pore waters and 3) whether there is any relation between Arctic Ocean ice cover and DOM composition. Molecular data, obtained via 15 Tesla Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer, were correlated with environmental parameters by partial least square analysis. The fresher marine detrital OM signal from surface waters was limited to pore waters from < 5 cm sediment depth. The productive ice margin stations showed higher abundances of peptides, unsaturated aliphatics and saturated fatty acids formulae, indicative of fresh OM/pigments deposition, compared to northernmost stations which had stronger aromatic signals. This study contributes to the understanding of the coupling between the Arctic Ocean productivity and its depositional regime, and how it will be altered in response to sea ice retreat and increasing river runoff.