Environmental Innovation Activities Research Articles

The use and drivers of organisational eco-innovation in European SMEs

European SMEs are key contributors to economic growth and contamination. Driving eco-innovation (EI) within SMEs is crucial for achieving SDG goals, such as clean energy, economic growth, Industry & Innovation. This study examines the relationship between eco-innovation and organisational innovation among SMEs in Europe and differentiates between the determinants for SMEs and large enterprises. We employ binary logistic regression models with maximum likelihood applied to Eurostat’s CIS database categorised by company size. We analyse 8.094 companies spanning nine countries, focusing on environmental innovation activities by innovation type. Innovation in work responsibility and decision-making is the most conducive form of EI, with a significant effect observed among SMEs higher than large corporations. There are clear differences in drivers of organisational EI for SMEs versus large enterprises, revealing that some of the most cited determinants of EI, such as regulations or energy costs, are not relevant for SMEs.

Green finance policy instrument mix and firms' environmental innovation: Does firm life‐cycle stage matter?

AbstractMany countries around the world have introduced green finance policies to promote environmental innovation activities. Based on institutional theory and life‐cycle theory, this study constructs a model among green finance, life cycle, and firms' environmental innovation. The research sample consists of 558 Shanghai and Shenzhen A‐share manufacturing listed firms from 2010 to 2021. Using multiple regression analysis, this study examines the influences of green credit, green bonds, and the mix of the two on firms' environmental innovation and the moderating role of the firm life cycle. The results indicate that green credit, green bonds, and the mix of the two have positive effects on firms' environmental innovation. Green bonds and the mix of green credit and green bonds have stronger positive effects on firms' environmental innovation in the growth stage than in the maturity and recession stages. By introducing firms' life‐cycle theory, this study reveals the mechanism between green financial policy and firms' environmental innovation, and provides a reference for optimizing combinations of green financial policy measures to promote the development of firms' environmental innovation activities.

Scrutinizing the nexus between green innovations and the sustainability of environmental system: novel insights from European database.

A study is presented in this paper that examines the effect of environmental innovation (EI) on environmental performance (EP). Six measures are used to reflect environmental innovation, including the percentage of enterprises that invest in environmental innovation, the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation activities, the number of ISO 14001 certificates, patents related to environmental innovation, the total R&D personnel and researchers, and the amount of green early-stage investments. The estimation results show that EI positively impacts EP in 21 European countries using different econometric techniques during the 2011-2019 period. By using various econometric techniques (namely a panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) model, a feasible generalized least square estimates (FGLS) model, and the two-step general method of moment (the two-step GMM), our research demonstrates how environmental innovation impacts on environmental quality. The short- and long-term effects of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) methods were also investigated using pooled mean groups (PMGs) to distinguish the short-run and long-run influences of EI. The relationship between EI and EP is explored by demonstrating how EI affects EP short- and long-term and comparing its influence on EP across many component measures of EI: air quality, sanitation, drinking water, heavy metals, waste management, biodiversity, habitat, ecosystem services, water resources, and agriculture. Notably, we find that the influences of EI become more pronounced in a country characterized by a well-developed institutional system. Our findings suggest policy implications to help countries invest in research and development with concerns about environmental damage mitigations more effectively. These findings are critical to suggest a way to help countries pursue ecological sustainability.

The nexus of environmental innovation and circularity: Evidence from European economies

This paper shows the importance of environmental innovation on the circularity performance of each country that creates favorable conditions to help countries move towards the circular economy. Six measures are used to reflect environmental innovation, including the percentage of enterprises that invest in environmental innovation, the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation activities, the number of ISO 14001 certificates, patents related to environmental innovation, the total R&D personnel and researchers, and the amount of green early-stage investments. We provide empirical evidence that innovation in environmental activities is crucial for an economy’s circularity performance, especially in the long term. Environmental innovation is also an essential enable of circularity.

Is economic complexity an enabler of environmental innovation? Novel insightful lessons from European region

PurposeThis paper empirically examines the influences of economic complexity performance on environmental innovation implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on four measures designed to assess the effectiveness of environmental innovations in 24 European countries, including the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation investment (% of surveyed firms), the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation activities (e.g. implementation of resource efficiency actions, sustainable products or ISO 14001 certificates) measured, a number of enterprises having new ISO 14001 registration and a number of environmental innovation related patents. After conducting various tests for longitudinal correlations and asymmetry of the studied series, we examine the relationship between product proximity, economic complexity and environmental innovation (EI) implementation using the panel-corrected standard error model (PCSE) model in the following section. The feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) model is employed to further verify our findings by taking into account heteroscedasticity. An application of the two-step generalized mixed model (GMM) is considered to resolve an endogeneity issue. In addition, the dynamic fixed-effects estimate (DFE) estimator is applied to the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) method in order to calculate both the short-run and long-run effects. As indicated by Ha (2022a, b) and Ha and Thanh (2022), the DFE-ARDL method can be used to identify both time-fixed effects and country-fixed effects.FindingsThe authors provide empirical evidence to propose the mechanism through which economic complexity encourages the implementation of environmental innovation through favorable impacts of economic complexity on environmental innovation investments of firms and governments and the public's awareness regarding the importance of environmental innovations.Practical implicationsThis research provides important implications for policymakers in promoting environmental innovations.Originality/valueThe study is the first to empirically examine economic complexity performance's influences on environmental innovation implementation. It is also the first to investigate the importance of institutional quality in enhancing the influence of economic complexity on environmental performance.

Uticaj transfera znanja na ekološke inovacije preuzetih kompanija u Republici Srbiji

Knowledge transfer is a key determinant of the development and implementation of innovations. It has not yet been sufficiently investigated how knowledge transfer can influence the environmental innovations of acquired companies in Serbia. This study investigates the role of knowledge transfer in acquired companies in Serbia and examines the impact of knowledge transfer on environmental innovation, i.e. on environmental innovation activities and strategy. The research was conducted based on the answers of 91 respondents, i.e. employees from five companies that were part of the acquisition process in Serbia. Collected primary data were processed in the SPSS program, using statistical analysis such as descriptive statistical analysis, correlational statistical analysis, and regression statistical analysis. Empirical results show that knowledge transfer in acquisition processes has a positive impact on the environmental innovations of acquired companies. The results show that knowledge transfer activities encourage the development and implementation of environmental innovations in those acquired companies. Since there is a lack of studies investigating the environmental orientation of acquired companies, this study contributes to the understanding of how knowledge sharing promotes the development of environmental innovations in acquired companies.

The role of financialization in stimulating environmental innovation implementation in the European region.

This paper empirically examines the influences of financial development on environmental innovation implementation. Our research is based on four measures designed to assess the effectiveness of environmental innovations in 24 European countries, including the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation investment (% of surveyed firms); the percentage of enterprises implementing environmental innovation activities (e.g., implementation of resource efficiency actions, sustainable products, or ISO 14001 certificates) measured, a number of enterprises having new ISO 14001 registration and a number of environmental innovation-related patents. Based on our analysis and estimates, we reveal that the better quality of the financial system improved the environmental innovation performance in the European region during the 2011-2019 period. To shed light on the link between financialization and environmental innovations, we dig deeper into financial markets and financial institutions' depth, access, and efficiency. Our results highlight financial institutions and financial markets' depth and efficiency in enhancing EI activities. However, EI-related patents do not show any significant improvements under the changes in the financial system.

Decentralization of environmental management and enterprises’ environmental technology innovation: evidence from China

ABSTRACT We construct an environmental decentralization index and use spatial econometric modeling to test the government’s role in promoting environmental technology innovation at the enterprise level. The results show that a moderate increase in the degree of environmental decentralization is conducive to promoting local enterprises’ environmental innovation and avoiding excessive distortions caused by externalities. Further investigation reveals that the effect is more pronounced when local tax competition is taken into account. However, administrative decentralization and supervision decentralization have different effects on enterprises’ environmental innovation. An increase in administrative decentralization has a negative impact on enterprise innovation, and environmental supervision should be more focused on the central government, which can help avoid excessive distortion caused by externalities. Our analysis is of certain reference value for understanding the influence of rational allocation of environmental protection functions among different levels of government on enterprises’ environmental innovation activities.

Does Environmental Regulation Promote Environmental Innovation? An Empirical Study of Cities in China.

Promoting environmental innovation through environmental regulation is a key measure for cities to reduce environmental pressure; however, the role of environmental regulation in environmental innovation is controversial. This study used the number of environmental patent applications to measure urban environmental innovation and analyzed the role of urban environmental regulation on urban environmental innovation with the help of the spatial Durbin model (SDM). The results showed that: (1) From 2007 to 2017, the number of environmental patent applications in China has grown rapidly, and technologies related to buildings dominated the development of China’s environmental innovation. (2) Although the number of cities participating in environmental innovation was increasing, China’s environmental innovation activities were highly concentrated in a few cities (Beijing, Shenzhen, and Shanghai), showing significant spatial correlation and spatial agglomeration characteristics. (3) Urban environmental regulation had a positive U-shaped relationship with urban environmental innovation capability, which was consistent with what the Porter hypothesis advocates.

SYSTEMIC APPROACH TO ECOLOGICAL-INNOVATIVE MANAGEMENT OF THE MTE

The article forms the problem of low efficiency of the current system of environmental safety in road transport and identifies the need for the formation of a system of adaptive management of environmental and innovative activities of road transport enterprises. A model of the system of ecological and innovative management of MTE is proposed, which is based on the system approach and methodical apparatus of cybernetic modeling of viable systems. The transition from the functional approach to management used in the concept of viable systems to a more progressive process approach is justified, which will increase the versatility of the developed model. The enterprise management system is presented in the form of a metasystem (management entity) and an operational element (management object). The object of management is presented in the form of a system of management of MTE ecological innovations portfolios (subsystem of operational management). These projects are implemented in five basic business processes of the motor-transport enterprise: the main production processes; related processes; auxiliary processes; security processes; business processes management and development. The model of a viable system of ecological and innovative management of MTE provides development of a complex of models which ensure efficiency of introduction of ecological innovations in business processes of the enterprise. The use of the proposed model allows to increase the consistency, efficiency, accuracy, adequacy of management decisions; stability of functioning and adaptation to changing conditions of external and internal environment; increase the predictability and transparency of environmental innovation activities of the MTE, which improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise. The result of applying a viable management model is to improve the manageability of the system and increase the level of environmental monitoring of the process of providing road transport services. The results of the study contribute to the formation of a systematic view of the adaptive management of environmental and innovative activities of the MTE in the scientific concept of modeling viable systems.

Do environmental subsidies spur environmental innovation? Empirical evidence from Chinese listed firms

Although one of the main reasons why governments offer environmental subsidies to firms is to encourage environmental innovation, the effectiveness of such measures is unclear. In this study, we examine the effects of subsidies on firms’ environmental innovation activities (i.e. environmental technology innovations and environmental management innovations). We use fine-grained panel data on Chinese listed manufacturing companies over the period 2011–2015. We find that whilst Chinese government environmental subsidies boost firms’ environmental management innovation significantly, their effect on environmental technology innovations is not statistically significant. We employ an instrumental variable two-stage least squares (IV-2SLS) approach to handle potential selection bias. We find also that there is no statistically significant relationship between firms’ environmental management innovations and environmental technology innovations. These findings hold for a range of robustness tests.

Can attention allocation affect firm’s environmental innovation: the moderating role of past performance

ABSTRACT Based on the upper echelons theory and the attention-based view of the firm, this study constructed a relationship model between the top management team's attention allocation and the firm's environmental innovation. Given the firm's environmental innovation activities may be influenced by resource factors, we selected the past performance of the firm (measured by profit) as the moderating variable. Three hundred and twelve listed Chinese companies were selected as the research sample, and NVivo11 and SPSS21.0 software were used to analyze the relationships among attention allocation, past performance, and environmental innovation. The results showed that the more attention that the top management team allocated to policies and consumers, the more likely the firm was to adopt an environmental innovation strategy; however, the more attention that top management team allocated to competitors and employees, the less likely it was the firm adopted an environmental innovation strategy. Besides, the past performance of the firm played a positive moderating role between the top management team's attention to consumers and the environmental innovation of the firm.

Sustainability-Oriented Innovation Practices and their Role in Promoting Environmental Innovation through the Mediating Role of Green Transformational Leadership in Oil Companies (A Case Study of Basra Oil Company)

The current research aims to identify sustainability-oriented innovation practices and their role in enhancing environmental creativity through the intermediate role of green transformation leadership in organizations. Field research was carried out at Basra Oil Company and a random sample of 113 employees, The questionnaire was used as a key tool for data collection, it consisted of three axes, the first for sustainable innovation-oriented practices, the second for green transformational leadership, and the third for environmental innovation, and the data were analyzed through the advanced statistical program AMOS and the SPSS program, the data were analyzed through AMOS and SPSS. The research was based on a key hypothesis that "there is a relationship and impact between sustainability-oriented towards innovation practices and environmental innovation through green transformational leadership". The results showed that the organization in question has a vision of sustainability-oriented towards innovation practices in the development of new competencies that support green innovation in the organization as well as the organization to acquire innovative and environmentally friendly technologies and processes. In key areas where there are no previous experiences, the organization is constantly exploring new ways to understand the expectations and requirements of key stakeholders, but some areas need a better understanding of the best practices regarding the use of new management systems to manage environmental innovation as well as the management of the organization is often actively involved in environmental innovation activities on average and the management of the organization invests an average proportion of R & D in environmental innovation. Finally, management often collects information on environmental innovation trends. In addition, several recommendations have been formulated, the most important of which is the formulation of strategies for the implementation of sustainability directed towards creative practices to promote environmental creativity that is compatible with the characteristics of the Iraqi environment and its requirements, The new technologies of sustainability-oriented towards the development of processes and products and sustainability-oriented towards the development of creative competencies support the enhancement of the environmental creativity of the organization in question. This course contributes to achieving the efficient green performance of the organization.

Environmental Audit as a Tool for the Country's Eco-Innovative Development Ensuring

The issues of environmental impact reduction became a significant factor in the decision-making process for the development of organizations in the EU. Systematic environmental management is an effective way of solving environmental problems arising in organizations’ activities. Creating an effective environmental audit system is an essential step in ensuring the regulatory response to the extensive level of environmental pollution. To identify the role of environmental audit in the growth of environmental innovation activity of the country, a number of panel multiple regression dependencies were constructed. The survey database includes data for 28 countries of the European Union for the period 2010-2017. Factor variables of the study were the absolute number of environmental audit organizations, their ratio to the total number of enterprises, and the number of environmental audit and management sites. The resulting variables were the value of the index of eco-innovation of countries and its components. The conducted analysis showed that in the European Union countries, an environmental audit is an effective tool for ensuring their eco-innovative development. It is revealed that the biggest positive effect of the growth of the number of environmental audit organizations is manifested in the growth of the scope of eco-innovation activities and the volume of its financing, as well as the increase of the level of environmental responsibility of the organizations. On the other hand, the increase in the density of environmental audit organizations in relation to the number of enterprises is a factor hampering the country's environmental innovation. Research for different groups of countries proves that increasing the level of eco-innovation progress of states leads to an increase in the positive effects of the functioning of the environmental audit system for further eco-innovative development. At the same time, the maximum level of impact of environmental audit on the intensity of eco-innovation activity is observed for countries with an average level of progress. Thus, the necessity of the development of an environmental audit in the formulation of Ukraine's environmental policy was proved. Keywords: environmental audit, environmental reporting, environmental management, eco-innovation activities, environment.

Corporate Sustainability and Environmental Innovations: Practical Implications From a Cross-Country Analysis Over 15 Years

Sustainability and environmental related innovation activities are important for the present and for the future. These innovations occur throughout the world and in different contexts. Manufacturing related organization may approach these activities from different perspectives. The question we raise is whether country-related differences, in this case, between Germany and the United Kingdom exist and how they changed over time. Using survey information, we find that sustainability and environmental innovation activities have increased greatly. What has become more popular has shifted over the years. We find some differences in the countries and the types of initiatives. We also find small and large firms may focus on different initiatives. These results are of interest to managers and policy makers; we point to some possible practical takeaways from our study.

Environmental innovation inertia: Analyzing the business circumstances for environmental process and product innovations

AbstractWe categorize the environmental innovations used in the environmental management and innovation management literature into two types: environmental process and product innovations. By using objective measurements of internal and external business circumstances from a large‐scale survey of manufacturing firms in Korea, we investigate whether firms delay adoption of specific environmental innovations and if so how to overcome the passive nature of environmental innovation activities. The main findings are as follows. Both low operational performance and high export intensity are likely to lead to environmental process innovations. On the contrary, they do not play a significant role in increasing environmental product innovations. Instead, environmental product innovations take place under normative pressure. These results contribute to the “it pays to be green” and true sustainability discussion by examining the business environmental fit of a focal firm—either with environmental process innovations or with environmental product innovations.

Análise macrocomparativa da inovação ambiental (1990, 2000 e 2010)

O objetivo principal do trabalho é compreender a influência e captar as configurações relacionadas ao meio ambiente e à tecnologia dos países desenvolvidos e em desenvolvimento que compõem a amostra, nos anos de 1990, 2000 e 2010. A base de dados consiste na utilização de fatores relacionados à atividade inovativa ambiental, ao grau de desenvolvimento econômico, às condições de infraestrutura, capacidade de produção de energia alternativa e nível de emissão de gases CO2 e à capacidade científica das nações. A metodologia aplicada aborda um método pouco explorado na literatura sobre inovação e meio ambiente: a técnica de análise qualitativa comparativa (QCA). Ao aplicar a técnica, para cada ano, os resultados fornecem uma análise de eventuais mudanças nas configurações específicas de cada país nesse intervalo temporal. Os resultados revelaram que as configurações que levam à inovação ambiental são representadas por boas condições de capacidade ambiental, científica e econômica.

The role of institutional pressures in the introduction of energy‐efficiency innovations

AbstractRelying on the institutional and innovation theories, we argue that the institutional features of countries are significantly influencing energy‐efficiency innovation (EEI), a relevant and particular type of environmental innovation activities. Analysis of a cross‐sectional sample of 22,936 firms from nine European countries, drawn from the 2006–8 Community Innovation Survey, confirms the hypothesis that formal and informal institutions influence the propensity of firms to introduce EEIs in general. Furthermore, formal institutions that generate regulatory pressures are found to spur both product and process EEI activities, while informal institutions exerting social pressures are able to significantly drive only product EEI activities. Large firms appear to be relatively more reactive to high regulatory pressures. We draw implications for policy‐makers and managers based on the findings.

Environmental Management Competitive Pressure Effect on SME Environmental Innovation Activities: A Green Supply Chain Perspective

The idea of assimilating green supply chain is to integrate and establish environmental management into the supply chain practices. The study aims to explore how environmental management competitive pressure influences a SME company in Malaysia to incorporate green supply chain integration, which is an efficient platform to develop environmental innovation. This study further advances green supply chain management research in Malaysia by using the method of quantitative analysis to analyze the model developed which data will be collected based on a sample of SMEs in Malaysia in manufacturing sector. The model developed in this study illustrates how environmental management competitive pressure from main competitors affects three fundamental dimensions of green supply chain integration. The research findings suggest that environmental management competitive pressure is a vital driving force for a SME company to incorporate internal and external collaboration in developing green product innovation. From the analysis conducted, the study strongly demonstrated that the best way for a company to counteract competitor’s environmental management success is to first implement strong internal green product development process then move to incorporate external environmental management innovation between their suppliers and customers. The findings also show that internal integration of green product innovation fully mediates the relationship of environmental management competitive pressure and the external integration of green product innovation.

Environmental innovation activities and patenting: Germany reconsidered

This paper provides new econometric evidence on the determinants of eco-innovations by using multiple innovation indicators and by combining survey-based information and patent records at the firm level from two different time periods. We hypothesize that firms with a propensity to patent focus on future technological and market opportunities and do not directly or immediately react to incentives created by environmental policies. Based on negative binomial models, we confirm that eco-patents are stimulated by the expectation of creating technological advancement and new market opportunities. By contrast, energy cost savings can better or more easily be achieved when firms refrain from patenting and concentrate on non-patented innovations or adoption. Favorable framework conditions created by environmental policies and patent protection are also important for eco-patenting, but more in the longer term. Testing the validity of using self-reported eco-innovations, instead of patents, as the dependent variable in simple binomial probit models reveals that product eco-innovations as reported in the surveys are a relatively good proxy for eco-patents. Yet, for product eco-innovations, serving and enlarging current markets is another important reason to innovate.