The drivers for adoption of eco-innovation

Considering the highlighted significance of understanding why and how companies integrate environmental sustainability into innovation process, it is important to question: How has the business literature researched ‘eco-innovation’ related to the drivers that boost companies' adoption? What are the drivers and motivation for companies' adoption of eco-innovation? How could results from the literature help define a conceptual framework of eco-innovation drivers and motivations? To address these questions, a systematic review was conducted. After defining inclusion and exclusion search criteria, the search of peer reviewed papers from the ISI Web of Knowledge database was systematically applied. The final database included 96 full papers, of which 35 matched the specific target of analysis that focused at: i) Eco-innovation concepts and approaches; ii) Methods and main findings; and iii) Drivers and motivation for adoption of eco-innovation. Results indicated that there is a growing interest in this concept, not only from a managerial but also from an academic perspective (54% of papers were published after 2010). Various methods are used in the selected papers, and evidence shows that leading firms are protagonists in developing new technologies. Although specific or one-off actions was enough to recognize eco-innovation in some cases, to boost performance companies need to improve the focus in eco-innovation as an explicit goal of their strategies. This paper contributes by pointing out internal factors that companies can manage in order to fully adopt eco-innovation, going beyond mere compliance of external factors over which companies have little or no control. Based on the systematic review, this article draws propositions and develops a conceptual model for further empirical research on eco-innovation.