Sustainable mining. To what extent do current patent innovations focus on sustainability and resource efficiency?

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 3.8/4.0, University of Bedfordshire (BUSINESS SCHOOL), course: BA (HONS) BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, language: English, abstract: This thesis examines patent documents as sources of eco-innovations that would improve the sector. In this thesis, European and United States patent offices have been used as data bases. It follows that a total of 51 patent documents were obtained from US patent office and 128 patent documents from European patent office. However 45 patent documents were suitable for cross-sectional analysis through content analysis. Researchers findings from 45 patents that were analyzed show that innovations in sustainability seem to be an area of interest amongst inventors. On the other hand, trends and patterns show that innovations in energy efficiency and sustainability have been issued more compared to waste management innovations. The researcher explains the logic that since energy efficient innovations and sustainability innovations aim to reduce pollution and wastes, hence little can be paid waste management innovations rather than to be ignored. Eco-innovations are being regarded as essential products or processes that not only help in fostering sustainable development but also help in creating and enhancing new business opportunities. Over the years, the public view of the mining sector has been negative due to the pollution it brings. Therefore the sector is challenged to show that it can contribute to the welfare by minimizing pollution through eco-innovations.