查看文章

Austria is committed to the Sustainable Development Goals and to become climate neutral until the year 2040. The transition to a greener economy will lead to a change of the goods and services Austria produces. In the theory of Economic Complexity, each country has capabilities that enable it to produce different products [1]. The set of capabilities is determined by the geographical conditions of a country, its workforce, available technology and infrastructure. A country with a diverse set of capabilities can, in general, produce more complex products which correlates with higher income. Countries differ in their capabilities and therefore also in the goods they are producing. This translates to their specific location in the so-called Product Space [2]. In the Product Space, the distance between two products depends on the similarity of their required capabilities. For example, trousers and shirts are located close to each other, but far away from computer chips. It has been empirically shown that countries move through the Product Space by developing goods close to those they currently produce [2].

In this exploratory study, we identify green products for which Austria already has most of the required capabilities and which therefore offer opportunities for Austria's green economic development. We discuss the global market size and analyze the identified products for their dependence on critical materials. We further determine the regions of Austria which are well suited to produce these products and compare the results for Austria with the green development opportunities for Germany and Switzerland.