Smart Specialisation Strategies need to enter a third historical phase to promote truly sustainable development in regional economies
JRC Working Paper Series For a Fair, Innovative and Sustainable Economy, 06/2025
In this paper, it is argued that Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) play a significant role to support the transformation of regional economies towards sustainability. Numerous S3 priorities address issues of renewable energy, electric mobility, the development of a circular economies in various sectors, etc. Doing that, regions are increasing the efficiency through which natural resources are transformed into final products and services. All things being equal, this contributes to decrease regional ecological footprints. However, to be truly sustainable, S3 and other regional policies should not only proceed to decrease regional demand for natural resources, they should also operate on the other side of the “regional impact inequality” to increase the supply of natural resources. The new generation of S3 needs to consider Nature as internal to the regional economy and, thus, to be based on an integral vision of development where Nature is defined as a capital asset which needs to be managed like the other capital assets (produced and human capital).
FORAY Dominique;
2025-09-09
European Commission
JRC142617
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC142617,
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