Challenges to Green Innovation: Technological, Economic, Policy and Social Constraints in the Transition to Sustainability

Abstract

This paper examines the multifaceted challenges hindering the rapid and widespread diffusion of Green Innovation (GI)-defined as the products, processes and methods that significantly reduce environmental risk and resource consumption. Despite GI's critical role in achieving global sustainability and climate goals, its progress is severely constrained by a complex, interconnected web of barriers spanning technological, economic, political and social domains. The analysis identifies and elaborates on five major impediments: 1. Technological hurdles, including the R&D 'Valley of Death' and performance gaps of nascent green solutions 2. Economic and financial barriers, centered on the prohibitive 'Green Premium' and market failures due to uninternalized externalities 3. Regulatory and institutional roadblocks, characterized by policy instability and potent incumbent resistance 4. Social and behavioral friction, notably local community opposition and consumer inertia and 5. Supply chain and infrastructure dependencies, which introduce geopolitical vulnerability and critical lock-in effects to existing carbon-intensive systems. The paper concludes that overcoming these systemic challenges requires a coordinated global strategy encompassing massive public R&D investment, robust and predictable carbon pricing mechanisms and holistic institutional reforms to accelerate the necessary systemic transition.