Does eco-innovation foster or hinder environmental performance? Recent evidence from Europe

This study investigates the impact of country-level eco-innovation policies on the environmental performance of European firms. As different industries are expected to produce more pollution, the study then explores the impact on the firms operating in sensitive industries. We use fixed effects panel data models to examine 1,098 firms listed in 22 European countries from 2010–2018. Our results indicate that country-level eco-innovative policies provide an encouraging environment for European firms to adopt environment-friendly practices. Eco-innovation policies help firms achieve CO2 targets and mitigate climate change which supports the product stewardship theory. Our results also suggest that larger, more profitable, and low debt-financed European firms have better environmental performances. We also find a moderating impact of industry sensitivity and make an intriguing discovery that country-level eco-innovation policies hinder the environmental efforts of the firms operating in sensitive European industries. These results are robust to different proxies of eco-innovation and endogeneity issues due to reverse causality.