Environmental management system as a driver for eco-innovations: experiences in italian organizations

In the last years, a great deal of attention has been paid to eco-innovations because they provide a win-win solution to improving firm’s competitiveness and sustainability. This growing interest is demonstrated by the high number of articles aimed at exploring their determinants and driving forces. In general, literature emphasizes the relevant role of regulation and cost savings as motivations triggering eco-innovations, but lower attention is devoted to understand why some firms are more likely than others to introduce this kind of innovations. In such context, this article aims to identify potential correlations between environmental organizational innovations (in particular environmental management systems EMS) and technological environmental innovations (such as environmental product and process innovations) and to understand if EMS may actually be a driver of eco-innovations. The analysis was performed analyzing the experiences of 153 Italian companies interviewed from 2009 to 2013.