Mapping The Links Between Resource Efficiency And The Innovative Capacity Of National Economies

The article examines studying the relationship between the level of innovation in different countries and the efficiency of their resource use, in order to better understand the potential impact of increased adoption of new technologies on the responsible use of resources in the future. Two country’s samples were created for the study: the first includes 36 world economies, with calculations of energy and labour resource use efficiency, taking into account the size of the economy and the level of innovation achieved; the second sample includes data on the material footprint of 121 countries, along with levels of innovation and economic development. The empirical confirmation of the hypothesis that there is a relationship between the level of economic innovation achieved and the efficiency of resource use is a key finding. Furthermore, the results of the correlation analysis indicate a direct and close relationship between a country’s economic innovativeness and its consumption volume of natural resources. This relationship can be described by a linear function. The analysis also confirms that as the population’s welfare and economic innovativeness grow, the state’s material footprint increases. The study is of theoretical and practical importance, encouraging the improvement of tools to ensure innovative development based on responsible production and consumption of resources. This approach aims to achieve better results at the same cost. Identifying the necessary factors related to innovative activity and efficient resource use by enterprises, as well as establishing functional dependencies between these variables, represent prospective areas for further research. In addition, a detailed examination of the experiences of Russian companies and their implications regional differentiation in terms of innovation and resource efficiency is a logical next step.