Evolutionary Pathways of Environmental Management in UK Companies

Abstract

This research focuses on the evolution of environmental management within firms. It is based on a survey and semi-structured interviews conducted among UK companies. Building on an evolutionary conceptual model, consisting of several maturity stages, we identify 'milestones', i.e. common practices companies engage in when progressing through specific maturity stages. Whilst clear commonalities can be identified, most notably linked to the order of maturity stages they progressed through and the emergence of commonly acknowledged practices linked to the individual maturity stages, the results also reveal a number of within-sample patterns regarding the companies' progression through the different maturity stages. It can be concluded that the maturity stages and practices identified in this research can provide valuable guidance for firms aiming to make progress in environmental matters, as they help them to identify in which maturity stage they are and sets out steps that they can take to move forward.not aim to develop their environmental management activities further. Finally, it would be very interesting to analyze more systematically the link between underlying drivers, company characteristics and outcomes for the different maturity stages. 180M. Ormazabal et al.

The Importance of the Diverse Drivers and Types of Environmental Innovation for Firm Performance

“…As firms strive for market position and competitive advantage they must look for profitable ways to get ahead, and stay ahead, of their rivals. One way of doing this is to eco‐innovate (Ambec et al , ; del Río et al , ; Esty and Winston, ; Guoyou et al , ; De Marchi et al , ; Ormazabal et al , ). A firm's strategic decision to eco‐innovate is likely to be influenced by internal and external factors.…”

“…As consumer awareness increases, government regulations tighten and sustainable development becomes a financially astute matter, managing eco‐innovation is becoming an increasingly important issue for firms and policy makers (Guoyou et al , ; Ormazabal et al , ). Eco‐innovation is a powerful tool, which can be used by new firms to undermine established firms and by established firms who need to maintain their competitive position in dynamic markets.…”

Institutional pressures and corporate environmental management maturity

“…An exhaustive literature review based on the content analysis method (see Gaur and Kumar, 2018 for more details on conducting a literature reviews using content analysis) on EMM reveals that an increasing number of development models have been proposed over the last three decades (see Table 1). Venselaar (1995) Reactive, active, proactive Hart (1995) Prevention of prevention, environmental management in products, sustainable development Shrivastava and Hart (1995) Band-aid, more serious, deep change Berry and Rondinelli (1998) Non-compliance, compliance, beyond compliance Buysse and Verbeke (2003) Reactive strategy, prevention of pollution, environmental leadership Cagno et al (2005) Control of pollution, prevention of pollution Rothenberg et al (2005) Regulatory, gross emissions, efficiency, life cycle Santos (2006) Jabbour et al (2010) Functional specialization, internal integration, external integration (Reactive, preventive and proactive) Murillo-Luna et al 2011Passive, attention to legislation, attention to stakeholder, total environmental quality Garces-Ayerbe et al 2016Laggards, initiated, proactive, eco-innovative Ormazabal and Sarriegi (2012) Ormazabal et al (2015Ormazabal et al ( , 2017 Legislation fulfilment, training, systematization, eco2, eco-innovative, leading green company Primc and Čater (2016) Reactors, defenders, analysers, prospectors…”

An overview of the circular economy among SMEs in the Basque country: A multiple case study

“…The model proposed by Ormazabal, Sarriegi, Barkemeyer, Viles and McAnulla (2015) has its roots in nearly a dozen maturity models and it focuses on the path a firm can follow to move from one stage to another. This model proposes six maturity stages:…”