The impact of investments in energy conservation technologies on the economic performance of companies - Example from the Czech Republic

Abstract

The article deals with an evaluation of the impact on companies of activities that take a friendly approach to the environment, using a sample of companies in the Czech Republic. The importance of business activities in this area is discussed. The potential benefits and problems connected with these activities are mentioned. The aim of the present paper is to verify the positive impact of activities aimed at using environmentally friendly technologies on the indicators of productivity and profitability. A sample of businesses that have been supported in their activities by state aid was used. This sample covered 222 companies. The representativeness of the analyzed sample was verified. For evaluation of the impact, a t-test (paired two-sample for means), F-test for variance analysis, ANOVA and regression analysis were used. For a qualitative point of view, three examples of analyzed projects are given. The main conclusion is that it failed to demonstrate a statistically significant improvement in the chosen indicators. We were unable to verify any statistically important impact on the indicators of profitability and productivity. Further analysis showed a statistically important difference in the profitability indicator one year after subvention use, depending on the value of the subvention. The results of regression analysis also confirmed the negative dependence of the profitability indicator on subvention use. Examples given in the article show that not all projects had a positive impact on economic indicators.