There are different shades of green: heterogeneous environmental innovations and their effects on firm performance

TL;DR

This study analyzes how different types of environmental innovations—resource-saving, pollution-reducing, and regulation-driven—affect firm performance metrics like sales, employment, and productivity using Spanish firm data from 2003-2016.

Contribution

It provides a detailed empirical analysis of the characteristics and performance impacts of various environmental innovation strategies at the firm level.

Findings

Environmental innovations positively influence firm sales and productivity.

Different types of innovations have distinct effects on employment.

Resource-saving innovations show the strongest impact on productivity.

Abstract

Using a firm-level dataset from the Spanish Technological Innovation Panel (2003-2016), this study explores the characteristics of environmentally innovative firms and quantifies the effects of pursuing different types of environmental innovation strategies (resource-saving, pollution-reducing, and regulation-driven innovations) on sales, employment, and productivity dynamics.