Environmental assets, industry 4.0 technologies and firm performance in Spain: A dynamic capabilities path to reward sustainability

Abstract

The consolidation of industry 4.0 (I4.0) as a new innovative ecosystem has generated high expectations about its economic and environmental effects. In this study, we investigate whether I4.0 technologies can reinforce environmental assets management in achieving firm results. We intend to contrast the existence of reward mechanisms for being green. Using a panel of 1028 Spanish industrial firms in 2009–2016 period, the research has obtained three main results. First, environmental assets, the use of robots and the adoption of flexible production technologies generate individual and two-complementarity marginal effects in the explanation of sales, exports and labour productivity. Second, environmental assets and I4.0 technologies do not generate any individual or complementarity marginal effect that positively explains gross operating margins. And, third, however, we have found a business model that generates significant total effects on the four firm results, especially on profitability, through the combination of environmental assets, I4.0 technologies, R&D expenditure, production flexibility and human capital management. Implications for the circular economy and ethical business models are also discussed.