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Up to now, ecology has a strong influence on the development of technical and instrumental aspects of architecture, such as renewable and efficient of resources and energy, CO2 emissions, air quality, water reuse, some social and economical aspects. These concepts define the physical keys and codes of the current ׳sustainable׳ architecture, normally instrumental but rarely and insufficiently theorised. But is not there another way of bringing us to nature? We need a theoretical referent. This is where we place the Van der Laan׳s thoughts: he considers that art completes nature and he builds his theoretical discourse on it, trying to better understand many aspects of architecture. From a conceptual point of view, we find in his works sense of timelessness, universality, special attention on the ׳locus׳ and a strict sense of proportions and use of materials according to nature. Could these concepts complement our current sustainable architecture? How did Laan apply the current codes of ecology in his architecture? His work may help us to get a theoretical interpretation of nature and not only physical. This paper develops this idea through the comparison of thoughts and works of Laan with the current technical approach to ׳sustainable׳ architecture.

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Innovations which reduce the environmental impact of production and consumption have been argued in the literature to play a relevant role in the path towards more competitive and environmentally sustainable societies. Identifying the main factors that activate and hinder firms’ decisions to eco-innovate in specific regions and in differentiated sectors can help policy-makers to implement suitable instruments to stimulate these determinants or to overcome these barriers. Over the past decade, many empirical papers have devoted attention on the drivers of eco-innovation at country level (Del Río et al., 2011; Díaz-García et al., 2015; Ghisetti et al., 2015; Hojnik and Ruzzier, 2015; Horbach, 2016, 2008), however, regional and sectoral analysis are still scarce (Del Río et al., 2016). Hence, the main purpose of this study is to analyse the drivers influencing the adoption of an eco-innovation in Catalonian firms. Catalonia is an interesting case to study for various reasons. Firstly, the region of Catalonia has the environment as a strategic priority and stands out by its pioneering role in the creation of an environmental quality label, or clean eco-label. Secondly, although many actions have been undertaken to promote innovation in the environment and the efficient use of energy resources between enterprises, the adoption rate is surprisingly unfavourable. For this reason, this article carries out an empirical analysis to offer useful proposals to design better environmental innovation policies. Furthermore, to overcome at least some of the limitations of earlier studies, which have used mainly cross-sectional databases, the empirical analysis carried out in this paper is based on the Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC), a panel data that incorporate an extensive sample of Catalonian firms that covers the period 2008—2015.  Hence, this study would provide novel results related to the temporal dimension in the literature on eco-innovation orientation. 

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Para la Unión Europea, la Economía Circular es a la vez una prioridad y una apuesta decidida en favor de un nuevo paradigma económico en nuestro continente. El tradicional modelo económico lineal de producir, consumir, usar y tirar está ya agotado. El objetivo fundamental debe ser cerrar el círculo: trabajar en todas las etapas de la vida de un producto, desde la extracción de las materias primas para su manufactura, hasta su transformación en residuo y posterior reciclaje, con el fin de que su valor se mantenga en el mercado el mayor tiempo posible y que, una vez que salga, pueda ser reciclado para ser posteriormente aprovechado y reutilizado como materia prima que se pueda reintroducir en el ciclo productivo. La Economía Circular no solo aporta beneficios medioambientales sino que supone alcanzar una mayor eficiencia en la gestión de los recursos naturales, lo que generará ahorros anuales de alrededor de 600.000 millones de Euros para empresas europeas, además de crear en torno a 580.000 nuevos empleos. Además, la Economía Circular contribuirá con importantes beneficios medioambientales, con una reducción de entre el 2 y el 4% de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero.
Para hacer realidad este cambio de modelo, es fundamental involucrar a todos los actores implicados: los Estados, las regiones, las ciudades y también el sector público y el privado, tanto en lo que respecta a grandes empresas como a PYMES, ONGs, inversores, emprendedores y ciudadanos. La Economía Circular representa un nuevo modelo de crecimiento y desarrollo sostenible que nos hará aumentar la competitividad de la Unión Europea, ganando en eficiencia, ahorrando recursos y generando importantísimos beneficios ambientales.
Se trata de una apuesta clave de la política medioambiental para la próxima década, y supone también para Cataluña una oportunidad única para situarse entre las regiones más punteras de Europa.

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