Elsevier

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 133, 1 October 2016, Pages 479-486
Journal of Cleaner Production

An exploratory study of UK companies' taxonomy based on environmental drivers

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.06.011Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Environmental drivers' influence varies according to the company's maturity stage.

  • Group of drivers: internal improvement, external awareness and formal requirements.

  • Lowest maturity stages are associated to strong focus on formal requirements.

  • Highest maturity stages are associated to intense focus on internal improvement.

Abstract

The rise in customers' and society's environmental awareness has pushed companies to improve their environmental management. Nevertheless, there are still many companies that are reluctant to go beyond the legal requirements, towards a more ambitious environmental framework. This research focuses on the drivers that encourage firms to improve their environmental management. As the importance of these drivers might be different depending on the maturity stage in which the company is, this study proposes a classification of companies that specifies which drivers are more important in each of these groups. None of the previous environmental management studies in the literature has been based on this relationship. The data for the study are obtained from an online survey conducted among UK companies. Firstly, factor analysis is used to find the interrelation among the different drivers proposed in the literature, obtaining three groups of factors. Secondly, Cluster Analysis is adopted to have a classification of the different UK companies according to the three factors. Finally, the most compact and coherent clustering solution is analyzed from the perspective of maturity stages leading to a final classification of companies focused on the identified factors. Globally, lower maturity stages are associated with a strong focus on formal requirements, while higher maturity stages are associated with an intense focus on internal improvement. This classification will allow practitioners and policy makers to better focus on specific drivers and help companies move forward according to their maturity stage. A roadmap for improving environmental performance somehow emerges, providing a good framework for decision support.

Introduction

Environmental management has emerged as an issue of great interest among companies (Céspedes Lorente and De Burgos Jiménez, 2004). Environmental issues are receiving more and more attention from all sectors as customers demand companies be more responsible for environmental matters, demanding products and services that minimize environmental impact (Abarca and Sepúlveda, 2001, Park and Seo, 2006).

However, despite the importance and benefits of environmental management, the level of adoption and implantation of environmental management practices is still weak in firms of many countries (Jamil et al., 2015). Many companies remain reluctant to incorporate environmental improvements or do not exploit the potential of environmental management.

Several authors have studied the drivers that motivate firms to go a step further in environmental management issues. Nevertheless, a great number of companies are satisfied with simply having an environmental management system through a certification such as ISO 14001 (Guerrero-Baena et al., 2015). During the last two decades, many researchers have studied why some firms respond to ecological issues while others do not even comply with the existing regulation (Bansal and Roth, 2000, González-Benito and González-Benito, 2006). Consequently, not all the companies are motivated by the same drivers. Organizations might find different motivations depending on what they have already done with respect to environmental issues; hence, their maturity stage needs to be taken into account when proposing new environmental tools or actions. It might be difficult for practitioners and policy makers to focus on specific drivers if they do not know what driver or group of drivers will help each specific company to move forward. Thus, depending on the maturity stage in which the company is, the importance of the drivers proposed in the literature might be different. However, none of the environmental management studies in the literature has been based on this relationship.

Consequently, the main objective of this research is to develop a classification of companies that specifies which drivers are more important in each of the maturity stages. This will allow practitioners and policy makers to better focus on specific drivers and help companies move forward.

Section snippets

Background

Not all the companies have environmentally improved in the same way and there have been several studies defining different environmental management classifications among companies. Moreover, the environmental drivers that a company might have may be different depending on its maturity stage and what it has already achieved.

Methods

As mentioned before, this research envisages an exploratory categorization of companies based on their maturity stage as regards environmental management, as well as based on the drivers that contributed to achieve the aforementioned level of maturity stage.

The Environmental Management System with the greatest impact, in terms of the number of certifications at a global level, has been ISO 14001:2004 (Bernardo et al., 2009). In terms of the number of certifications among European countries, the

Results and discussion

Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis were sequentially utilized to accomplish the research's objective.

Conclusions

Factor Analysis produced a meaningful structure as regards the drivers that contribute to the maturity stages. These drivers were grouped into three different factors labeled as Internal Improvement, External Awareness and Formal Requirements. Therefore, one can conclude that companies' framework perspectives reflect a distinction between internal factors, which include notably productivity and innovation, and external factors that include notably societal demands and corporate image.

Limitations and future research

The data were obtained from a convenience sample, which restricts the ability to generalize the obtained results. Furthermore, although the sample size fulfills the requirements from the utilized statistical techniques, a larger sample size would reinforce the conclusions.

On the other hand, different target populations can also be considered. In fact, a sample constituted by organizations coming from different sectors of activity provides a better portrait as regards global market behavior.

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