Environmental innovations and firms’ organizational changes: What kind of complementarity? Evidence from French industrial firms

This paper investigates the nature and degree of complementarity between environmental innovation and organizational changes in firms. We study the relationships of complementarity between eco-innovation processes and organizational and technical changes. We analyze complementarity based on the environmental impact of an innovation (reduction of CO2 emissions, reducing pollution, recycling, etc.) in order to shed light on the nature of the complementarity between each type of environmental impact and organizational changes implemented by firms. We use a methodology based on an adoption approach, and on bivariate probit models for studying these complementarities. One of the most significant results has been the identification of the key role played by organizational change dynamics in environmental innovation processes, which goes against an essentially technical vision of environmental innovation. The results highlight that the degree of complementarity varies according to the industrial structures, and that each sector has its own specificities in terms of eco-innovation.