‘Shrinking effects’ in cleaner production dissemination – An analysis of the Colombian RedES-CARprogramme

Abstract

This study evaluates the non-achievement of cleaner production dissemination objectives of firms participating in cleaner production dissemination programmes, often sponsored by public funding. The outcomes help identify, describe, and analyse factors influencing firms’ dropout, resulting in shrinking effects on the number of participating firms benefitting from such mechanisms. The RedES-CAR programme, a significant cleaner production dissemination mechanism in Colombia, served as a source for the empirical data used to test the theoretical model. RedES-CAR fits cleaner production dissemination models in the literature and contains a significant database with information on 490 firms committed to participation in the dissemination mechanisms during 2013–2019. Statistical evaluation identifies how user, organisational, market, and innovation factors influence dropout in diverse phases of the dissemination process. Moreover, the outcomes indicate how factors influencing dropout differ during the dissemination process. Market-based factors are the most relevant in early-phase dissemination for awareness and capacity building, and user and organisational factors influence the assessment, adoption, and multiplication of cleaner production practices. The results highlight the need for managers of dissemination programmes to understand cleaner production dissemination as a multiphase process composed of differentiated dissemination objectives and to raise awareness of the shrinking effect occurring in diverse phases. The societal and environmental benefits of CP dissemination increase with project implementation and multiplication, involving networks of actors. This study contributes to the literature by (i) amplifying the perspective of CP-dissemination literature integrating the lens of diffusion of innovation theory, (ii) offering a conceptual model for operationalising cleaner production dissemination (multiphase), and (iii) structuring factors (negatively) affecting dissemination objectives (multilevel). By doing so, this study also guides the design of strategies and structures to disseminate cleaner production by combining promotional, mitigation, and contingency approaches. The literature has traditionally focused on success stories; this study is an analysis of companies that do not fulfil the dissemination objectives.