Impacts of Environmental Certificate and Pollution Abatement Equipment on SMEs’ Performance: An Empirical Case in Vietnam

Abstract

Increasing global warming and intensity of disasters recently have made improving environmentally-conscious enterprises pivotal, as well as consumer demand for green products and the achievement of green strategies in some enterprises. This study explores the impact of environmental certificates and the cost of pollution abatement equipment on firm performance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this research, the linear regression method examines the effect of environmental-related certificates and technology on SMEs’ performance using Stata version 14.0 software. The training dataset comprises 3504 manufacturing SMEs in Vietnam during 2011–2015. The results highlight the positively considerable impacts of environmental-related certificates and the cost of pollution abatement equipment on SMEs’ performance. More importantly, the findings also highlight the excessive availability of pollution abatement equipment and whether it adversely impacts enterprises’ performance. The equipment cost positively impacts firm performance while, at an extreme value, the result shows a negative correlation. Furthermore, this study enriches the current literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and suggests SMEs approach and embrace more environmental-related certificates and technology to increase productivity.