Determinants of environmental product and process innovations : new evidence on the basis of European panel data

This paper empirically examines the determinants of corporate environmental product and process innovations. In contrast to previous studies, we use panel data from the ASSET4 and Worldscope databases for firms from 25 European countries between 2004 and 2017. This allows us to control for unobserved heterogeneity and time effects. Our fixed and random effects estimations in binary logit models reveal the relevance of this flexible panel data analysis. The estimation results imply positive effects especially of environmental training programs for employees and implemented environmental organizational measures on environmental process innovations. Interestingly, certified environmental management systems (EMS), certified quality management systems, and market pull factors seem to play no role for environmental process innovations, but rather for environmental product innovations. The latter are additionally affected by several technological push factors. This suggests public support of such non-mandatory approaches in order to foster environmental product innovations.