This paper investigates the role of standardization for green economic change using energy efficiency in buildings as a case. Innovation research on standards tends to focus on the competition between competing emerging standards as well as the economic impacts of these. The idea pursued here is rather to analyse longitudinal trends in the standardisation process itself, seeing these as important constituents of modern economic change. The paper traces more specifically changes in the thematic direction of the standardization process over time. The analysis seeks to capture when, where and how energy efficiency becomes an issue in standardization work using buildings as a case. The paper seeks more specifically to investigate the rise of building related standards generally over time as well as in different technical areas and geographic regions.
The hypothesis pursued in this paper is that the rise of the green economy can only take place accompanied by considerable institution formation in the form of standards. In this sense, the presence of standards may be seen as an important indicator on the maturity of the greening of the economy. The paper presents early empirical work and contributes as much to formulating a research agenda and provide methodological clarifications as presenting solid findings. The paper feeds more fundamentally into an evolutionary economic understanding of (green) economic change.