TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION FOR 

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS: 

AN EPA ROADMAP

April, 2012

EPA-190-S-12-003
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TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION FOR

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS:

AN EPA ROADMAP

INTRODUCTION: A NEW AND EVOLVING NEED

Technology development is essential to America’s global competitiveness. President Obama has 

said that the United States will win the future by out educating, out innovating, and out 

building our competitors.1 Cost-effective, innovative technologies can advance environmental 

protection and safeguard people’s health while furthering economic growth. They have also 

been shown to help businesses reduce costs, expand product markets, and increase 

profitability. The EPA’s Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, has said that smart environmental 

protection creates jobs. It creates a market for clean technology and then drives innovation 

and invention – new products for that market.

2 President Obama has directed federal agencies 

to use their capabilities to develop creative ways of supporting technology development in the 

United States. To this end, the EPA has developed this Roadmap to help guide its efforts with 

both internal and external stakeholders to implement specific strategies to meet the new 

challenges and opportunities posed by Presidential executive order,3 Presidential 

Memorandum,4 Presidential Strategy,5 Presidential Initiative,6 and recent legislation.7

 1 President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, January 25, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address 2

Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Remarks at the National Press Club, As Prepared, 

http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/12a744ff56dbff8585257590004750b6/70ba33a218b8f22f852576e0006b2a53!Op

enDocument

3 EO 13563, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review”, www.regulations.gov/exchange/topic/eo-13563 4 “Government Reform for Competitiveness and Innovation”, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/11/presidentialmemorandum-government-reform-competitiveness-and-innovation 5 “Strategy for American Innovation”, www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/nec/StrategyforAmericanInnovation/

6 Startup America, www.whitehouse.gov/issues/startup-america 7 America Competes Act, www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/01/06/america-competes-act-keeps-americas-leadership-target

EPA VISION FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

The EPA will promote innovation that eliminates or significantly reduces the use of toxic 

substances and exposure to pollutants in the environment and that also promotes growth of the 

American economy. Building upon the EPA’s history of scientific and technological expertise, the 

Agency will seek out prospective technological advances that have the greatest potential to 

achieve multiple environmental goals. Consistent with its statutory and regulatory authorities, 

the EPA will partner with a diverse set of new and existing stakeholders to speed the design, 

development and deployment of the next generation of environmental technologies, creating a 

cleaner environment and a stronger economy for our nation and the world.
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To help achieve this vision, the Roadmap has been designed to advance the EPA’s efforts to 

look at a broad range of approaches to solving the country’s most pressing current 

environmental problems and preventing future ones. As part of this groundbreaking effort, the 

EPA is examining the most promising opportunities to advance this vision within its legal 

framework. A critical component of the EPA’s vision is the role of private capital markets 

because of the growing interest in environmental technology as a platform to help companies 

reduce costs, expand product markets, and increase profitability and jobs. Public-private 

collaboration will help connect regulators, businesses and investors to take a focused approach 

to facilitating environmental technology innovation that reduces pollution along the entire 

continuum of development, commercialization and deployment in the United States and 

abroad.

STRATEGY

Consistent with its authorities, the EPA will undertake policy, regulatory, financial, and 

voluntary actions, grounded in science, that will promote innovation along the entire 

continuum of technology development and deployment.8

 8 Except as otherwise permitted by EPA’s export authorities, EPA may not promote or endorse any specific products, goods or 

services.

Working with new and existing 

partners and stakeholders, the EPA will seek tangible, outcome-oriented opportunities to 

catalyze and support technology innovation across the range of the Agency’s work.

Specifically, the EPA will advocate more cost- effective, innovative solutions that eliminate, or 

significantly reduce, adverse impacts to natural resources in a manner that promotes healthy, 

productive communities. This approach will address the full range of opportunities to solve 

current and emerging environmental and public health problems, including those listed below:

Specific technological solutions to solve a straightforward environmental problem – the 

application of proven scientific knowledge and existing technology to address a singular 

environmental need.

New technology to help solve significant problems – multi-disciplinary solutions that deliver 

better results to solve a complex problem.

Major technology development initiatives – targeting significant environmental problems 

which have significant economic and social impacts.

Technology for a future state – novel solutions that replace (rather than incrementally 

improve) current approaches and strategies.
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OBJECTIVES

This roadmap will help drive actions to reduce 

risks to public health and the environment while 

spurring economic growth through sustainable 

innovation. Initial Agency efforts will focus on 

four broad actions, including:

1. Designing EPA policies, regulations, 

standards, permits, and procedures to 

leverage technology innovation.

 Information systems will be developed to 

ensure that the EPA staff keep abreast of 

emerging technologies and routinely 

consider their potential impacts and 

applications.

 The Agency will support business 

research and benchmarking of emerging 

technologies.

 The EPA will consider policies, 

regulations, standards and permits 

currently under development and 

identify opportunities to spur the design 

and deployment of innovative technology

solutions to concrete environmental 

problems.

2. Catalyzing technology design, development, 

finance, commercialization and adoption 

through partnerships with stakeholders.

 The EPA will partner with interested 

individuals, organizations, institutions, 

and businesses across the broad 

spectrum of society, including technology 

designers, users, regulators, developers, 

and consumers, to spur innovation that 

benefits society today and over the longterm.

Innovation in Practice

Technology Clusters

The EPA is promoting the use of technology 

clusters to advance collaboration and 

leadership for sustainable environmental 

technology innovation. In 2011, the EPA 

worked with partners to launch the Water 

Technology Innovation Cluster in Cincinnati. 

The cluster serves as a regional catalyst for 

innovation with the goal of promoting 

science, technology, policy and job creation 

to solve environmental challenges.

Technology Market Summit

The EPA is co-sponsoring with American 

University a Technology Market Summit in 

2012. The Summit will bring together 150 

representatives of government, industry, 

investment and academia with the goal of 

stimulating innovation and expanding the 

technology market to protect the 

environment and human health, build 

markets and create jobs, develop 

partnerships, and identify concrete actions 

that the public and private sectors will take 

to increase investment in and broaden 

business opportunities for innovative 

environmentally beneficial technologies.

Small Business Innovation Research 

Program

EPA helps small businesses commercialize 

innovative technologies to solve high 

priority environmental and human health 

problems. One business supported by EPA's 

SBIR Program developed a sustainable 

biocomposite material which can replace 

petroleum based products. The company 

has grown from five to 40 employees and is 

currently scaling the business, including the 

opening of a new manufacturing facility for 

innovative environmental technology.

Another grant recipient used

nanotechnology to develop a biomimetic 

coating which replaces toxic cutting fluids. 

Since it was funded, this company has 

grown to 20 employees.
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3. Stimulating cross-Agency consideration, 

development, commercialization, and 

adoption of breakthrough technologies.

 The EPA will use its existing technology 

transfer mechanisms to catalyze and 

harness innovation to solve discrete 

environmental problems.

 The EPA will strengthen its efforts to 

establish research, development, and 

demonstration partnerships with other 

federal agencies and public and private 

institutions. 

4. Developing a new relationship with the 

investment community. The EPA will take a 

number of steps to build relationships and 

improve communication.

 The EPA will facilitate public-private 

innovation partnerships that bring new 

technologies into the marketplace.

SUMMARY

EPA’s Roadmap, Technology Innovation for 

Environmental and Economic Progress, reflects 

the Agency’s commitment to innovative, costeffective, sustainable approaches to the 

protection of the air, water and land upon which 

society depends for its health and economic wellbeing, in the short term and for the future. By 

working with interested stakeholders and within 

its authorities, the EPA will seek to harness 

American ingenuity to develop the next 

generation of innovative products and 

technologies that eliminate waste, reduce the 

public’s exposure to toxic chemicals, and help 

build thriving businesses and healthy 

communities.

Innovation in Practice, continued

Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) 

Program

EPA’s SNAP Program evaluates substitutes 

for ozone-depleting substances (ODS) and 

ensures a smooth transition from ODS to a 

variety of next-generation alternatives 

across major industrial, commercial, and 

military sectors. A globally-recognized 

program, SNAP has listed over 400 

alternatives with lower overall risks to 

human health and the environment. 

Once substitutes are listed as acceptable 

under SNAP, they can be used according to 

listed use conditions, thereby expanding the 

suite of safer alternatives and alternative 

technologies to be added to the 

marketplace.

Driving Innovative Technology

Recently, EPA announced an "innovative" 

settlement with the Marathon Petroleum 

Corporation to reduce air pollution when its 

refineries burn off waste gases. Marathon 

agreed to install state-of-the-art controls on 

its flares, and to cap the amount of gas it 

flares. Working with EPA, Marathon helped 

advance new approaches that reduce air 

pollution and improve efficiency at its 

refineries and provide the U.S. with new 

knowledge to bring similar improvements in 

air quality to other communities across the 

nation. Marathon indicates that the 

equipment it already has installed is saving 

it approximately $5 million per year through 

reduced steam usage and product recovery.