Why does eco-innovation differ in service firms? Some insights from Spain

Although environmental innovation studies have traditionally focused on manufacturing firms, the distinctive features of eco-innovation activities carried out by service firms require special attention. Using the Spanish Commumity Innovation Survey (CIS), this paper determines which are the main drivers of undertaking eco-innovation and investigates the similarities and differences between service and manufacturing firms within the five sub-groups of services (supplier dominated, scale intensive physical networks, scale intensive information networks, science-based, and others). The results confirm that the main eco-innovation triggers are similar-technological push factor orientation (internal R&D and persistence) and firm size-while the impact of market pull factors and public environmental legislation differ within the services sub-groups. In addition, we find a high degree of heterogeneity within service firms. In contrast to traditional service firms, those in the groups involving R&D activities, information networks, and scale-intensive physical networks exhibit intensive eco-innovation performance and show a high level of green indicators.