Environmental Performance Improvements and External Stakeholder Pressures in Companies with Certified Environmental Management System

Abstract

The relationship between environmental performance and Environmental Management Systems has been widely investigated by international researches. Despite this, our paper adds new perspectives to the current literature framework. First, it is focused on companies with an Environmental Management System registered according to EMAS Regulation, while many previous studies considered also ISO14001 certified companies. Second, to achieve the objectives of this paper, a wide sample of Italian companies was considered, and the results of a questionnaire survey filled out by 143 organizations are reported. In addition, this study points out the relationship between environmental performance and stakeholder pressures which have not been thoroughly investigated in previous papers. The results show that EMAS positively influences performance on some environmental aspects such as water consumption and emissions into the atmosphere, while this positive influence is not confirmed for other aspects. The Public Authorities represent the stakeholder identified by the survey as the main external pressure to improve environmental performance.