Industries in emerging markets often have exposure to countries with much more stringent environmental regulations. While partners in these countries may push their green innovation practices to emerging market industries through positive spillovers, institutional arbitrage and pollution haven arguments suggest that these industries will profit from their comparative advantage in non-green practices. Using a comprehensive sample of 18 manufacturing industries across 30 countries, we investigate these ideas by examining the institutional and competitive factors that influence the green innovation rate of emerging market industries. We find evidence that more exposure to countries with stringent environmental regulations reduces the rate of green innovation in emerging market industries. We find that this result is driven by industries from countries with low levels of environmental stringency and lower openness to global norms. This relationship is also driven by emerging market industries with higher technological sophistication, suggesting that these industries will focus on innovation in non-green technologies to serve the institutional arbitrage needs of their buyers and maintain their comparative advantage.