Environmental Technologies and Eco-innovation in the Czech ...

● tradable emission allowances (according to the EU ETS system),
● support of energy production from renewable resources (pursuant to the Act
No. 180/2005 Coll. on the support of energy production from renewable energy
resources),
● environmental payments (fees for polluting air and water, fees for depositing waste
into landfills),
● direct financial support (in particular the state budget, the State Environment Fund
of the Czech Republic, EU funds – Operational Programmes).
Considering that a persistent problem of eco-innovation development on the supply
side is a low level of cooperation between the private sector and public organizations
involved in research and development, it is absolutely necessary to strengthen or
create supporting tools. While economic tools can be applied in the private sector,
for organizations involved in science and research, it is advisable to reflect desirable
activities when evaluating the performance and subsequent allocation of funds, namely
through institutional and organization tools. Public support for establishing and
operating of scientific laboratories and technology parks (centrally as well as at the
regional and local levels) is also of great importance. A very important administrative
tool is verification of environmental technologies, which is a fundamental condition
for deciding about potential support. At the EU level, cooperation between the public
and private sectors based on specialized platforms seems to be very successful.
In the Czech Republic, the following organizational and institutional tools are
used to support environmental technologies and eco-innovations:
● programmes and concepts (e.g. Programme of Support for Environmental
Technologies in the Czech Republic, National Innovation Strategy, National
Innovation Policy, Fundamental Long-Term Research and Development Trends,
National Research Programme, programmes of individual ministries),
● the purchase of environmentally friendly products (pursuant to Government
Resolution No. 720 on the proposal to support the development of the sale and usage
of environmentally friendly products of 19 July 2000),
● supporting structures and mechanisms for the application of voluntary tools
(labelling, systems of environmental management).
Information tools include the obligation to acquire, process and submit information
about the state of the environment and about the influences on it (monitoring the state
of the environment, EIA, information about environmental properties of products) as
well as purposeful work with information (education and awareness).
In the area of environmental technologies, the process of environmental impact
assessment (EIA) is very importance. During this assessment, the conditions for
operating the facility can be determined. While this is a soft tool (in theory, the