Improving the Eco-Innovation Status of Africa using Sustainable Chemistry Principles

Abstract

Sustainable or green Chemistry has been identified as a crucial ingredient for sustainable development due to the vast array of chemical materials and processes that are utilized in the production of goods and services. This study reviews the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development in the context of sustainable chemistry and outlines its principles and benefits while presenting eco-innovation as an important approach to sustainability. The status of African countries in the eco-innovation movement is not encouraging and the continent is largely left out in this endeavour due factors like poor implementation and or domestication of existing eco-innovation policies; lack of eco-innovation policies and indigenous eco-innovations mentality. Areas for the application of sustainable chemistry principles and driving eco-innovations in Africa are highlighted and inherent challenges are analyzed.

Does foreign direct investment matter for environmental innovation in African economies?

“…Rather, FDI has been widely reported to play a critical role in determining how healthy the environment is. Thus, in modelling environmental innovation in Africa, endogeneity is not considered a strong concern given the low level of environmental innovative practices that may not be enough to pull FDI yet (Nnaji and Igbuku 2019 ). Baseline models are estimated using two-stage least square to probe the possible existence of this problem with results presented in Table 6 .…”