Eco-innovation measurement: A review of firm performance indicators

Increased awareness on sustainability has influenced business organizations to improve their environmental performance and efficiency. In this context, eco-innovation implementation is positioned as a target for organizations to be more sustainable in order to reduce negative externalities and reach governments' green requirements and consumers' demands. The aim of this paper is to provide a critical review of literature on eco-innovation performance indicators. This study identifies the 30 firm performance indicators most cited by researchers and classifies them into four different green innovation types, i.e. product, process, organizational and marketing. A substantial gap has been found throughout the literature on this issue as studies do not include a complete combination of the key performance indicators across the four types of eco-innovation. This information is necessary to obtain an accurate measurement of eco-innovation level and it is useful to companies and stakeholders for performance evaluation. Moreover, understanding which performance indicators are more suitable for measuring the level of environmental innovation affords governments the possibility to draft policies that encourage companies to be more sustainable and firms to implement green practices in a more efficient way. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.