General wisdom concerning the factors affecting the adoption of cleaner technologies: a survey 1990–2007

Cleaner technologies (CT) have recently received much attention in diverse media and policy agendas. This comes out of the clear role they play in environmental protection and sustainability and the large potential to contribute to economic growth and competitiveness. The realization of both potentials depends on the level diffusion and exploitation achieved, today very low. This article presents a selective survey of papers that today represent the general wisdom concerning the factors affecting adoption as a primary condition to diffusion and exploitation of CT. The paper helps to clarify the challenges facing diffusion modelers and policy makers when dealing with policy design, assessing the levels of diffusion achieved as well as the factors affecting diffusion of a particular technology. The paper ends outlining further research need in the field.