The place of eco-innovation in the current sustainability debate.

In the last 15 years, eco-innovation has been able to raise the interest of the scientific community and policy makers. Parallel to the on-going debate on eco-innovation, the notion of 'circular economy' recently shaded - if not replaced - other concepts or approaches, related to environmental protection and resource efficiency, eco-innovation included. This paper tackles the notion and rationale of 'eco-innovation' in today's debate among researchers and practitioners. It constitutes an attempt to clarify, and define the current and potential future role of eco-innovation also as a counterpart of circular economy. After analysing the most relevant scientific and policy literature on the subject, eco-innovation emerges as a still relevant and promising research field, with a larger scope than the circular economy one. It is therefore recommended that discussion and investigation on eco-innovation is pursued beyond the boundaries of waste management and resource flows, as outlined by circular economy, so as to achieve sustainable development at global scale.