Does activity sector matter for the relationship between eco-innovation and performance? Implications for cleaner production

Abstract The literature confirms that every industry is affected by sector-specific technology, which determines innovations in goods and services, although these technological differences remain ambiguous in the context of eco-innovation. Further, the relationship between eco-innovation (understood as management of clean production in the firm) and the different measures of performance is not completely clear. This study aims to clarify the relationship between technology intensity in the sector and eco-innovation, and to determine the effect of eco-innovation on revenues. To achieve this goal, we establish two levels of study. The first is a cross-sector analysis that compares the differences among industries with widely disparate technologies. The second is an analysis of the organizations to examine specification of the eco-innovation goals and their repercussions for differences in revenues from new products for the firm, revenues from new products for the market, and revenues from unmodified products. The variable revenues is the measure that best reflects eco-innovation’s direct effects on the market. We test the theoretical model with a sample of 2094 firms, analyzing data on revenue two years after the firms implemented eco-innovation. Our data indicate that eco-innovation influences revenue positively in all sectors analyzed and confirm the technological differences among the sectors. Despite technological inequalities among the sectors, the effect of eco-innovation on business volume is positive and significant in all sectors. We discuss and analyze the results.