Green Innovations In French Manufacturing Firms: Incentives, Motivations, Environmental Benefits And Determinants

In last decade, there is increasing interest in understanding (and supporting by different public policies) innovative activity related to environmental protection. Hence, the present paper examines the incentives related to investment in environmental innovation in French manufacturing firms. Fist, we develop a theoretical analysis to indentify the factors that could be associated firms’ investments in environmental innovation. Specifically, we ask: When and why firms undertake a decision making process to invest in environmental innovation? The data set used has information on 2270 firms. Our findings indicate that the source of the environmental innovation investment lies within range of internal factors. More precisely, we may conclude that firms are mainly internally oriented (process innovations) and primarily aim at reducing costs. Econometric models permits to show that three dimensions have a significant impact on all the environmental benefits: size, training and cooperation. Firms´ behaviours regarding green innovations seem to be more reactive (external pressures/drivers like existing regulations) rather than proactive