Barriers to eco-innovation: empirical analysis of European firms

Abstract

The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the barriers perceived by companies and empirically analyse their influenceon eco-innovation. Thus, in this article, we consider financial, knowledge, market, and regulatory barriers, since they havebeen shown to be crucial in the context of innovation management. For the empirical analysis, we use data from FlashEurobarometers 426 and 456. The two samples used include European companies and provide information on eco-innovative activities and on their drivers and barriers. The use of these data allows us to analyse eight barriers to eco-innovation and their possible changes between 2015 and 2017. The results obtained show that the barriers are positivelyrelated with eco-innovation in both samples. These counter-intuitive results are due to the fact that barriers are perceivedonce eco-innovations are developed and even, the perception of barriers can be considered as part of the experientiallearning process.