Environmental innovation: in search of a meaning

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a definition of the term “green/environmental innovation”, based on a systematic literature review.

Design/methodology/approach

The literature review conducted in this research was based on papers published in ISI Web of Science and Scopus databases.

Findings

Environmental innovations are organizational implementations and changes focusing on the environment, with implications for companies’ products, manufacturing processes and marketing, with different degrees of novelty. They can be merely incremental improvements that intensify the performance of something that already exists, or radical ones that promote something completely unprecedented, where the main objective is to reduce the company's environmental impacts. In addition, environmental innovation has a bilateral relationship with the level of proactive environmental management adopted by companies. Increasing of environmental innovation tends to come up against many barriers.

Originality/value

Many researchers use the term “environmental innovation” but only a few articles present a complete definition of this concept.

Citation

Dias Angelo, F., Jose Chiappetta Jabbour, C. and Vasconcellos Galina, S. (2012), "Environmental innovation: in search of a meaning", World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development, Vol. 8 No. 2/3, pp. 113-121. https://doi.org/10.1108/20425961211247734