Economic Complexity

and Green Transformation

Opportunities

The social consensus reached in the face of the global climate catastrophe to decarbonize the economy is undisputed. Austria's goal of climate neutrality by 2040 needs ambitious decarbonization of current production methods in established industries on the one hand, but on the other hand also requires promoting new, green technologies and products. Ambitious roadmaps and a faster transition to a climate-neutral economy are key to establishing market leadership in green technologies. In this project, we identify which green products that are currently not significantly produced represent a special opportunity for Austria to establish itself in the future.

Drag to compare the number of green products.

Potential Green Products in Austria

In the theory of economic complexity, each country has capabilities that allow it to produce different products. These capabilities include, for example, the physical conditions of the country, a skilled workforce, a stable legal system, and the available technology landscape. Based on the recognition that some products require similar and some require completely different technological and societal conditions, a so-called "product space" can be created.

It has been empirically proven that the product space can predict the future development of a country's product portfolio, for example market entry or growth in certain goods. Based on the proximity to currently produced goods we can evaluate the potential to manufacture a currently not produced commodity. Commodities that are produced in Austria in 2021 are marked as filled circles, commodities that are not produced, but have high potential are marked as half-circles, and products with low potential are shown as empty circles. Based on a set of databases we identified green products, they are marked with an additional black outline.

The nodes in the product space are goods, and the distances between the goods in the product space represent the similarity of the underlying technologies or their prerequisites. For example, pants and shirts are very close to each other, but far from more technologically sophisticated products such as computer chips.

Below we show all identified potential green products and the links between them. Click on a green product to see a short description and where in Austria the capabilities to produce it are located.