Promoting Sustainable Innovation and the Circular Economy: Legal and Economic Aspects

The book explores the role of public market actors in sustainable and circular economy innovation and financing.

The shift to a circular economy requires active innovation, alongside radical changes in law, finance and policy considerations, since regulation is often tightly connected with the assumption of a linear model of consumption. Finance is crucial in creating sustainable and circular economy markets and innovations: public finance is important from the perspective of seeing the state as an engine for promoting sustainable innovations, but private funds are also required. Legislative initiatives for promoting repairs have been proposed or adopted in the EU, US and in Australia, representing remarkable steps forward but still leaving many obstacles without legislative intervention. This book examines circular economy regulation and policy on a comprehensive, general level, as well as assessing the regulatory possibilities of promoting the right to repair. Promotion of circular economy innovations as well as changing the practices and changing consumer patterns towards a more comprehensive adoption of CE are discussed from perspectives of legal, social and moral norms. The book critically evaluates current legislative reforms and assesses existing barriers to the circular economy and innovation in intellectual property law, consumer law and competition law.

Providing an in-depth analysis of this dynamic field, geared towards reconsidering both existing and prospective policies and regulatory regime, the book makes recommendations for solutions to legislative barriers. It is an indispensable resource for both researchers and practitioners working at the intersections of markets, innovations and sustainability.

Ole-Andreas Rognstad is full professor at the Department of Private Law, and director of Centre of European law, University of Oslo. He teaches a whole range of subjects, including legal methodology and EU/EEA law and intellectual property law, in particular copyright law. His authorship includes a textbook on (Norwgian) copyright law, a monograph on Property Aspects of Intellectual Property, contributions to a (co-authored) textbook on EEA law as well as a large number of articles mainly in the field of intellectual property. He has chaired, and been a member of, a number of public dispute settlement resolution bodies in Norway and is a member of the European Copyright Society, Academia Europea and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Art.

Taina Pihlajarinne is a professor at the Helsinki University Faculty of Law. Her research interests are focused on the relationship between sustainability and private law, especially intellectual property rights. She has also written articles and books about technological development and IPRs. At this moment she leads the research project “Shaping, fixing and making markets via IPR: regulating sustainable innovation ecosystems” funded by the Academy of Finland.

Jukka Mähönen is Professor of Cooperative Law at the University of Helsinki and Professor of Law at the University of Oslo. He is a sub-project principal investigator in the Research Council of Finland project Shaping, fixing and making markets via IPR: regulating sustainable innovation ecosystems (SHARE) and a work package leader in a Horizon Europe project Towards a New Zero Food Waste Mindset Based on Holistic Assessment (ToNoWaste). He holds LL.M. (Berkeley), M.Sc. (Econ.) (Turku), LL.Lic. (Turku) and LL.D. (Turku) degrees. His research interests are in accounting and auditing law, cooperative and company law, sustainability law and private global governance.