Information communication technologies and environmental innovations in firms: joint adoptions and productivity effects

Information communication technology (ICT) and environmental innovation (EI) are relevant waves of the ongoing technological revolution. We study the complementarity in innovation adoption to test the research hypothesis that the higher the diffusion and intensity of usage of ICT and EI, the higher a firm's productivity performance might be. However, it is not certain that the use of different innovations stemming from different innovation paths generates higher productivity. To test our hypothesis, we use original survey data concerning manufacturing firms in Northeast Italy including detailed information on both ICT and EI. Empirical evidence shows that there are still wide margins to improve the integration between EI and ICT in order to exploit their potential benefits on productivity. The awareness of specific synergies seems to mainly characterise the heavy polluting firms that are subject to more stringent environmental constraints, while some trade-offs tend to emerge for the remaining firms.