Determinants of Environmental Innovations in Germany: Do Organizational Measures Matter? A Discrete Choice Analysis at the Firm Level

Based on a unique firm level data set of the German manufacturing sector, this paper provides new empirical evidence regarding the determinants of different types of environmental technological innovations. We examine particularly the effects of environmental organizational measures such as certified environmental management systems. The econometric analysis is based on binary and multinomial discrete choice models. The latter are considered because they allow for the examination of the determinants of specific types of environmental innovations compared with the absence of such innovations as basic alternative. The most important result is that single measures such as product design with life cycle analysis and take back systems for products have a significantly strong positive effect on environmental product and process innovations. In contrast, the effects of certified environmental management systems are statistically less reliable. While the world-wide ISO 14001 standard has a significantly weak positive influence, the European EMAS standard has no significant effect on environmental innovations at all. A certification with at least one of these standards has a significantly positive effect on both the realization of an environmental product and a process innovation, indeed only compared with the realization of no environmental innovation.