Scientific and engineering improvement of environmental risk management - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 389

Figure 11.6 Innovative technology verification.
evaluate innovations that appear to hold strong potential for application on a broader
scale'' (US EPA, 2004).
Proper evaluation and dissemination of the innovations need money, time and
knowledge. Nowadays IT tools, especially the internet, make it easier, but innova-
tion still struggles with difficulties. Because marketing is a profession separate from
engineering, it is typical that market-oriented management does not ensure that the
best (environmentally most efficient and most sustainable) innovations reach the mar-
ket. For example, remedial technologies based on natural processes are not able to
break through, in spite of being inexpensive, environmentally and ecologically effi-
cient, soft and green. The same advantages cause the problem: these technologies are
not “technological'' enough, they lack large and noisy equipment, and do not pro-
vide an engineering “power show''. Only “knowledge'' is necessary to find out how
to upgrade or speed up what nature has begun. This kind of culture is not sufficiently
appreciated yet because there is no confidence in it.