Unmasking the Porter hypothesis: Environmental innovations and firm-profitability

We examine impacts of different types of environmental innovations on firm profits. Following Porter's (1991) hypothesis that environmental regulation can improve firms' competitiveness we distinguish regulation induced and voluntary environmental innovations. We find that innovations which reduce environmental externalities reduce firms' profits, as long as they are induced by regulations. However, innovation that increases a firm's material or energy efficiency in terms of material or energy consumption has a positive impact on profitability. This positive result holds both for regulation induced and voluntary innovations, although the effect is significantly larger for regulation-driven innovation.We conclude that the Porter hypothesis does not hold in general for its 'strong' version but has to be qualified by the type of environmental innovation. Our finding rest on firm level data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey in 2009. --Environmental innovation,environmental regulation,Porter hypothesis,competitiveness

Long-term impacts of environmental policy and eco-innovative activities of firms

This paper analyses two aspects of environmental regulations triggered by ecoinnovations. First, whether there are long term effects of regulation on innovation. Second, whether the impact of different types of regulation differ by type of the environmental benefit of the innovations. To answer these questions, the paper uses firm level data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey 2009, in which companies were asked to cite the respective regulations to be responsive for the firms’ introduced environmental related innovations. Regulations quoted by firms are classified into several policy types and also the age the respective regulations are calculated. We find evidence for long-term effects of environmental regulation on innovation. Furthermore, different types of regulations varied with respect to their impact on several environmental benefits of innovations

Good enough! Are socially responsible companies the more successful environmental innovators?

The link between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities and financial performance of firms has been intensively examined and debated in academics and politics, but the connection to innovation has so far lacked research attention. This paper investigates whether CSR is complementary to environmental innovations, so that a joint introduction of both strategies generates a higher financial performance than the application of one or none of the strategies. We analyse if environmental innovators can generate higher financial performance by signalling their environmental engagement through CSR. For this purpose, we use panel data of environmental R&D activity together with a CSR variable on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and analyse their effect on the financial performance of a firm. The novelty of our work is the complementary approach with which we examine the effect of a joint strategy of environmental R&D and CSR on financial performance. Although our results support the view of strategic complements for environmental R&D and GRI, we cannot conclude that this is also true for other types of CSR signalling environmental engagement

Policy-induced environmental technology and inventive efforts : is there a crowding out?

Significant policy effort is devoted to stimulate the development, adoption and diffusion of environmentally- friendly technology. Sceptics worry about the effects of regulation-induced environmental technology on firms’ competitiveness. Since innovation is a crucial productivity driver, a potential crowding out of inventive efforts could increase the cost of mitigating environmental damage. Using matching techniques, we study the short-term effects of regulation-induced environmental technology on non-green innovative activities for a sample of firms in Germany. We find indeed some evidence for a crowding out of the firms’ in-house R&D. The estimated treatment effect is larger for firms that are likely to face financing constraints. However, we do not find negative effects on the number of ongoing R&D projects, investments in innovation-related fixed assets or on the outcome of innovation projects. Likewise, for firms with subsidy-backed environmental innovations no crowding out is found

Invention in energy technologies : comparing energy efficiency and renewable energy inventions at the firm level

Many countries, especially in Europe, have ambitious goals to transform their national energy systems towards renewable energies. Technological change in both renewable production and efficient use of energy can help to make these targets come true. Using a panel of German firms linked to the PATSTAT patent data, we study invention in both types of energy technologies and how their inventors differ in terms of central firm-specific characteristics. More importantly, we study the relation between conventional (i.e. non-energy) invention and energy invention within the firms. The results from dynamic count data models point to a stimulating effect of conventional inventions for energy efficiency technologies but have no effect on inventions in renewable energies

Unmasking the Porter hypothesis : environmental innovations and firm-profitability

We examine impacts of different types of environmental innovations on firm profits. Following Porter’s (1991) hypothesis that environmental regulation can improve firms’ competitiveness we distinguish regulation induced and voluntary environmental innovations. We find that innovations which reduce environmental externalities reduce firms’ profits, as long as they are induced by regulations. However, innovation that increases a firm’s material or energy efficiency in terms of material or energy consumption has a positive impact on profitability. This positive result holds both for regulation induced and voluntary innovations, although the effect is significantly larger for regulation-driven innovation.We conclude that the Porter hypothesis does not hold in general for its “strong” version but has to be qualified by the type of environmental innovation. Our finding rest on firm level data from the German part of the Community Innovation Survey in 2009

Green innovations and organizational change: making better use of environmental technology

The literature on within-firm organizational change and productivity suggests that firms can make more efficient use of certain technologies if complementary forms of organization are adopted. This issue may be of even greater importance for the case of greenhouse gas (GHG) abatement technologies imposed by public authority as to reduce social costs of climate change while they are not necessarily expected to increase private returns. Previous research, however, has largely neglected this aspect. Using German firm-level data, we find that organizational change increases the returns to the use of CO2 reducing technologies and that joint adoption leads to higher productivity. Without having introduced complementary organizational innovations, the adoption of CO2 reducing technologies is associated with lower productivity

Trade and the environment: an application of the WIOD database

The new WIOD database allows for improved empirical analysis on a wide range of important environmental research questions. In this paper we demonstrate the scientific power of the WIOD database and analyze very urgent policy questions on the impacts of international trade and structural change on the environment. We apply recent econometric approaches to show the impact of international trade on the environment via its different channels as for instance to increase welfare and potentially affects environmental regulation as well as countries’ sector. This approach has become known as the econometric structural decomposition method. In addition to this guidelines by the literature, an econometric panel data approach is offered to shed some light on the impact of structural change and international trade on environmental pressure, where we especially address and solve several endogeneity issues that add further complexity to the analysis

From less promising to green? : technological opportunities and their role in (green) ICT innovation

This paper aims to shed light on the role of technological opportunities for green innovation by studying the case of Green ICT innovation. We test two hypotheses: (1) Firms active in low-opportunity technological areas are less innovative; (2) Firms active in low-opportunity technological areas are more likely to change their direction of technical change. To do so, we construct a firm-level panel data set for the years 1992-2009 combining patent data from the European Patent Office with firm-level data from the German Innovation Panel (Mannheim Innovation Panel). The results are based on dynamic count data estimation models applying General Methods of Moments estimators. Our results support our hypotheses: firms active in low-opportunity technological areas are less innovative but are more likely to switch from pure ICT innovation to Green ICT innovation

ICT and the demand for energy : evidence from OECD countries

This paper analyzes the relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) and energy demand. We construct a comprehensive cross-country cross-industry panel data set covering 13 years, 10 OECD countries, and 27 industries. Using up to 2889 country-industry observations, we find that: (1) ICT capital is associated with a significant reduction in energy demand. (2) This relationship differs with regard to different types of energy. ICT use is not significantly correlated with electricity demand, but is significantly related to a reduction in non-electric energy demand. That is, ICT use comes with a reduction in total energy demand and an increase in the relative demand for electric over non-electric energy