dc.description.abstract | Sustainable development has become an important concept in the last decades. Sustainable
development tries to reconcile the relationship between economic growth and
environmental damage. In the last decades, ecological problems became more severe.
Decoupling economic growth and environmental harm seems to be crucial in order to avert
a lot of environmental damage. One major role to tackle this conflict is reserved for
environmental innovation. Environmental innovations or eco-innovations are new products
and processes that reduce the environmental impact. Eco-innovations can bring sustainable
benefits, but only when widely used or implemented. Thus, eco-innovations have to diffuse
across society. This paper aims to increase the understanding of the most important factors
that slow down or accelerate the diffusion of eco-innovations. It will thus answer the
question: which factors slow down and which factors accelerate the diffusion of eco-
innovations?
To answer this question, a systematic literature review has been carried out. 39
articles about the diffusion and adoption of eco-innovations among firms have been
analysed. In the analyses, various factors that influence the diffusion came up. Based on
recurring patterns in the articles, five categories were identified in which the factors were
placed. These categories form the new classification this paper proposes. The five categories
are cost relating factors, benefit relating factors, regulatory factors, informational factors
and dummy factors. The factors in the last category are often used as control variables in the
literature. The most reported factors (15 times or more) are resources, investment costs,
type of regulation (cost relating factors), market demand for sustainable products/services,
profitability (benefit relating factors), availability of regulations, type of regulation
(regulatory factors), resources, information flows, attitude of managers/owners,
organizational environmental practices (informational factors) and size (dummy factors). The
new classification is more logical and useful in the current literature.
A limitation is that comparison of factors in different articles can be difficult, because
of all the differences in eco-innovation types, industries and adopters. Another limitation is
that developing countries are neglected in literature.
Future policies should take the importance of the five categories and corresponding
factors into account. | |