Incentivizing environmental sustainability investments
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2023-07-11
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en
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Through a positivist qualitative approach, this thesis contributes to scientific, societal and policy debates concerning the effectiveness of two policies aiming to incentivize firms to invest in their environmental sustainability performance. The effect of both environmental reporting regulation and tax breaks and subsidies on the awareness of opportunities for environmental sustainability investments and willingness to engage in these investments is investigated.
The main research method employed is that of semi-structured interviews, based on literature and theory. Literature is inconclusive regarding both questions. A debate on environmental (reporting) regulation is highly active since Porter and Van der Linde (1995). The effectiveness of subsidies is debated by Bossle et al. (2016) and others. Seventeen firms and a sustainability advisory firm were interviewed, document analysis and web research were used to back up findings from these interviews. Reporting regulation is found to be effective at incentivizing investments particularly in small firms, tax breaks are found to be inefficient at incentivizing these investments, whereas subsidies and grants are found to be highly effective. Finally, environmental managerial concern is found to be of importance for willingness to invest and to accept higher costs. Furthermore, policy recommendations and avenues for further research are identified.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen