Des billets verts pour des enterprises agricoles vertes

[paper in French] The conventional wisdom about environmental protection is that it comes at an additional cost on farmers imposed by the government, which may erode their global competitiveness. In fact, there are many ways through which improving the environmental performance of a farm can lead to a better economic performance, and not necessarily to an increase in cost. In this article, it is shown with short case studies how the Porter’s hypothesis can be applied to the agricultural sector. Following the framework developed by Lankoski (2006), and Ambec and Lanoie (2008), we argue, first, that a better environmental performance can lead to an increase in revenues through the following channels: a better access to certain markets, the possibility to differentiate products and the possibility to sell pollution-control technology. Second, a better environmental performance can lead to cost reductions in the following categories: regulatory cost; cost of material and energy; costs of capital and of labour.