The Influence of ISO 14001 and EMAS Certification on Environmental and Economic Performance of Firms: An Empirical Analysis

This paper analyses the influence of environmental management system certification on environmental performance as measured by physical environmental performance indicators, and on economic performance based on a variety of firm-level financial indicators. For this purpose, data on environmental performance has been collected from corporate environmental reports and emissions inventories for a sample of companies in the paper and electricity generation industries in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and the UK; and in parallel, financial information for the same set of firms has been extracted from financial databases in a comparable format. Based on this data set, the paper reports how EMAS verification and/or ISO 14001 certification interacts with the environmental and economic performance of firms. This includes an assessment of significant differences between firms in the paper and electricity sectors, as well as a more detailed analysis of the direct relationship between the environmental and economic performance of firms in the paper industry. The paper finds that three hypotheses formulated about the link between environmental management system certification and environmental and economic performance, as well as the relationship of the latter two, are rejected. Based on the data analysed, it therefore cannot be concluded that there is a statistically significant link between the certification of environmental management systems, environmental performance, economic performance, and their relationship.