Environmental innovations, complementarity and local/global cooperation: evidence from North-East Italian industry

This paper exploits a dataset of 555 industrial firms, located in the Emilia Romagna region in 2006-2008, to analyse complementarity in eco-innovation (EI) and to test the role of firm cooperation and internationally oriented strategies. Results show that the degree of complementarity between various EI factors is quite high with networking and corporate social responsibility playing dominant roles. EIs do not undermine economic performance, either in the short run or in the context of the global financial crisis. Econometric analyses highlight that international characteristics, especially foreign ownership, and networking with other firms and institutions are important for EI adoption, while general research and development is less so. Over and above the structural features of firms, strategic relationships within regions and at the international level are relevant and differentiate innovative performance. This study provides an in-depth regional investigation which complement the information gathered in the last wave of the community innovation survey which included questions on EI over the same period and is available for France, Italy and Germany.