What to do to Improve our Eco-Innovative Aptitudes? An Empirical Study on the Variables Affecting the Environmental Awareness of Firms While Innovating

ABSTRACT: Eco-innovation is an actual topic as it links two key issues, innovation and sustainability. The environmental respect and innovation are important drivers of competitiveness. Firms are willing to know what to do to improve their eco-innovative capacity. The objective of this paper is to empirically determine what common characteristics have the most environmental oriented innovative firms. We analyze data retrieve from the Spanish Technological Innovation Panel (PITEC) from 7682 Spanish firms using a two step approach. Results show the impact of certain variables in determining the environmental orientation of companies. More specifically, process and product orientation while innovating was reveled as crucial aspects in determining the environmental orientation of firms. Moreover, results showed the lower relative impact of the importance of market, institutional and technical information sources. Based on these results, we can determine which company’s behavior has to be promoted to get companies focused on environmental aspects. Important managerial and policy making implications are derived from the study. Key words: Eco-innovation determinants, PITEC, Spanish innovative firm