What drives agrifood firms to register for an environmental management system?

Abstract

This paper examines empirically which factors determine voluntary adoption of Environmental Management System (EMS) certification (ISO 14001 or EMAS) by agrifood industries. A discrete-choice model of EMS certification is applied to a sample of 1,000 French agrifood firms. The findings suggest that managementrelated factors drive certification more strongly than economic incentives and provides a new perspective on Porter's theory of the double benefit of certification. © Oxford University Press and Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics 2007; all rights reserved.