Innovation for environmental sustainability: business models for SMEs

Abstract

Purpose

An effective business model (BM) is essential for the success of any company, with sustainable innovation being a critical component of this model. This entails finding creative ways to meet present needs without compromising future generations. In this regard, cooperation can be crucial in developing sustainable innovation. This paper investigates how different types of cooperation impact the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) innovation for environmental sustainability. In this sense, it intends to compare the effects of cooperation acquired nationally or at a European level.

Design/methodology/approach

The methods used are logistic regression for the sample of 87,374 observations from 14 countries of the Eurostat Community Innovation Survey (CIS) database.

Findings

The results confirm that cooperation with national or European agents significantly impacts the innovation for environmental sustainability of SMEs; however, not all cooperations have the same significance level. At a national level, cooperation with the suppliers of equipment, materials, components or software, clients or customers and universities or other higher education institutes impacts the innovations for environmental sustainability developed by SMEs. At a European level, cooperation established with other enterprises within your enterprise group, equipment, materials, components or software suppliers, clients or customers and government, public or private research institutes significantly impacts innovations for environmental sustainability.

Originality/value

This study also provides substantial theoretical contributions on the subject and more information about the importance of cooperation by SMEs in developing innovation for environmental sustainability.

Citation

Figueiredo, N., Patrício, L.D. and Reis, M. (2024), "Innovation for environmental sustainability: business models for SMEs", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 532-551. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-10-2023-0510