Environmental management practices, environmental technology portfolio, and environmental commitment: A content analytic approach for UK manufacturing firms

Abstract

This study investigates how various aspects of environmental management practices EMPs (operational, strategic, and tactical) undertaken by firms influence their environmental technology portfolios ETPs (pollution control and pollution prevention). It also explores the role of environmental commitment of firms on the influence of EMPs on ETPs. This study uses data from content analysis of annual reports, and corporate social responsibility reports available from corporate websites of 76 UK manufacturing firms from eight different industrial sectors across two years using a time lag (2010–2012). We have controlled for industry type, economic performance and firm size in all our analyses. The findings of our study show that operational and tactical practices influence both the ETPs significantly but strategic practices influence only pollution prevention activities of firms. Further, we have found that environmental commitment positively moderates the influence of operational and tactical practices on pollution prevention but not on pollution control activities. There is no such moderating role on the influence of strategic practices on either pollution prevention or pollution control. Our finding generally highlight the short-term pollution control view; manufacturers focus on cost saving, operational efficiency, and being compliant with the environmental regulations rather than having a long-term strategy perspective. The use of strategic practices tends to have stronger influence on long-term pollution prevention activities. Once firms improve their level of environmental commitment, their involvement in long-term pollution prevention activities improve.