What Determines the Decision to Implement EMAS? A European Firm Level Study

Abstract

Empirical research on the characteristics of environmentally responsive companies has focussed on US and Japanese companies. For Europe, which is commonly considered as the greenest of the three major markets, similar research is lacking. This paper seeks to fill this gap by empirically investigating business and financial characteristics, stakeholder pressures and public policies to distinguish companies that have implemented the European Eco-Management and Audit System (EMAS) from a unique firm-level dataset of European publicly quoted companies. We find that the EMAS participation decision is positively influenced by the solvency ratio, the share of non-current liabilities, the average labour cost and the absolute company size as well as the relative size of a company compared to its sector average. The profit margin exerts a negative influence. We further find that companies whose headquarters is located in a country that actively encourages EMAS have a higher probability of participation. Finally, this paper suggests that rather than attracting other kinds of companies, a favourable institutional context succeeds in convincing more of the same kind of companies to participate.The authors thank anonymous referees for providing helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper.

Why, How and What do Organizations Achieve with the Implementation of Environmental Management Systems?—Lessons from a Comprehensive Review on the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme

“…Interestingly, Bracke et al [22] conducted a combined analysis, considering both internal and external adoption factors, concluding that large-sized organisations with good financial management and headquarters in a country in which the regulatory framework encourages EMAS implementation are more likely to pursue registration in the scheme. This result points to the importance of studying not only the motivations revealed by organisations implementing EMAS, but also the contextual supporting factors or barriers most likely to determine the success of EMAS implementation.…”

Time for carbon neutrality and other emission reduction measures at European airports

“…Several economic or management studies also investigate the determinants of environmental management systems or ISO 14001 adoption (Bracke et al, 2008;Darnall et al, 2010;Frondel et al, 2008;Heras-Saizarbitoria et al, 2011;Merli & Preziosi, 2018;Nishitani, 2009;Tuppura, Toppinen, & Puumalainen, 2016;Ziegler & Nogareda, 2009) and reveal that firm size, private/public ownership, management attitudes towards social responsibility, financial performance, and foreign ownership are crucial aspects. A related literature that focusses on the determinants of eco-innovations or investments find similar evidence (Bönte & Dienes, 2013;Triguero, Moreno-Mondéjar, & Davia, 2016;Ziegler & Nogareda, 2009).…”

“…Several studies investigate adoption of or participation in environmental certification and management system programmes as well as carbon reduction initiatives from the perspective of a firm (Darnall, Henriques, & Sadorsky, 2010;Frondel, Horbach, & Rennings, 2008;Halkos & Evangelinos, 2002;Haque & Ntim, 2018;Nakamura, Takahashi, & Vertinsky, 2001;Singh, Jain, & Sharma, 2014;Ziegler & Nogareda, 2009). More specifically, this relates to the EU EMAS (Bracke, Verbeke, & Dejonckheere, 2008;Heras-Saizarbitoria, Molina-Azorín, & Dick, 2011) or the ISO 14001 Environmental Man-agementSystems (Chiarini, 2017;Marimon Viadiu, Casadesús Fa, & Heras Saizarbitoria, 2006;Merli & Preziosi, 2018;Morrow & Rondinelli, 2002;Nishitani, 2009). There are also analyses focussing on the adoption of environmental management programmes in industries with high emissions from production of chemicals (King & Lenox, 2000), road freight transport (Oberhofer & Fürst, 2013), construction (Chiarini, 2019), or forestry (Tuppura, Toppinen and Puumalainen, 2016).…”

Why Do Firms Voluntarily Adopt Environmental Management Systems? The Case of the Czech Republic

“…Second, we examine the Czech Republic, i.e., one of the central European countries, which became an EU member in 2004. Bracke et al (2008) emphasize that the previous studies largely focus on the United States' Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) voluntary programs in the United States (see, for example, Cason, 1995, or Videras andAlberini, 2000) or on the ISO 14001 adoption in Japan. The adoption of ISO 14001 by Japanese firms is studied, for example, by Hibiki et al (2003) or Nakamura et al (2001).…”