Determinants of eco-innovations by type of environmental impact. The role of regulatory push/pull, technology push and market pull

Jens Horbach, Christian Rammer and Klaus Rennings

No 11-027, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Empirical analyses of the determinants of environmental innovations were rarely able to distinguish between different areas of environmental impacts. The paper tries to close this gap by employing a new and unique dataset based on the German Community Innovation Survey conducted in 2009. The main purpose of the paper is to test whether different types of eco-innovations (according to their environmental impacts) are driven by different factors. Besides a complex set of different supply, firm specific and demand factors, the literature on the determinants of environmental innovations accentuates the important role of regulation, cost savings and customer benefits. We find that current and expected government regulation is particularly important for pushing firms to reduce air (e.g. CO₂, SO₂ or NOₓ) as well as water or noise emissions, avoid hazardous substances and increase recyclability of products. Cost savings are an important motivation for reducing energy and material use, pointing to the role of energy and raw materials prices as well as taxation as drivers for eco-innovation. Customer requirements are another important source for eco-innovations, particularly with regard to products with improved environmental performance and process innovations that increase material efficiency, reduce energy consumption and waste and the use of dangerous substances. Firms confirm a high importance of expected future regulations for all environmental product innovations.

Keywords: Environmental Innovation; Environmental Impacts; Discrete Choice Models; Regulation; Cost Savings; Demand Pull; Environmental Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C25 O33 O38 Q55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-cwa, nep-dcm, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-ino
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Determinants of eco-innovations by type of environmental impact — The role of regulatory push/pull, technology push and market pull (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:11027

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