INNOVATIONS OF A GREEN PRODUCT

Abstract

These days, differentiating and ecologizing of the products has been gaining more and more importance. Therefore, green logistics has earned its indisputable position in an enterprise, as an important tool ensuring competitiveness. Small and medium enterprises may achieve these goals by implementing green innovations into a product as well as into the processes in an enterprise. The main objective of this paper is to propose possibilities of implementing green innovations of products and processes in Slovak small and medium enterprises. A survey which has been carried out regarding this topic, focused on the analysis of the perception of green products by customers, and on identifying the factors which customers take into consideration when making purchase decisions related to these products. The research has been evaluated by methods of testing the statistical hypothesis (Chi-square test, Friedman test, and the Wilcoxon test), methods of descriptive statistics, and data visualization. The conducted survey revealed that one of the main reasons why customers of Slovak small and medium enterprises do not buy green wooden products is their high price and lack of information related to them. When making purchases, our respondents also take quality and safety of green products into account. Based on the results of our research, the individual steps in the process of implementing green product innovations in an enterprise were proposed for Slovak small and medium enterprises. It is suggested that SMEs should place emphasis on responsible approach to the environment, long-term effort to make their operations sustainable, and providing green products in order to achieve smooth implementation of green innovations into their operations