Environmental Management Systems – Does Certification Pay?

Manuel Frondel, Karoline Krätschell and Lina Zwick

No 519, Ruhr Economic Papers from RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen

Abstract: The voluntary adoption of environmental management systems (EMS), frequently certified by third-party audits following international standards, has become a vital supplement to mandatory environmental policies based on regulation and legislation. Although there is empirical evidence that both EMS adoption and certification can effectively improve firms' environmental performance, the impact on their business performance is far from clear. Drawing upon an OECD survey including more than 4,000 manufacturing facilities, this paper fills this void by estimating the impact of both EMS adoption and certification on facilities' business performance using statistical matching techniques. While our results indicate that the pure adoption of EMS without any certification does not enhance facilities' business performance, the financial performance of certified facilities turns out to be significantly high.

Keywords: environmental regulation; matching methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O33 O38 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/104739/1/81064567X.pdf (application/pdf)

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Journal Article: Environmental management systems: Does certification pay? (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:rwirep:519

DOI: 10.4419/86788594

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