Environmental products and sustainability awards

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the impact of companies' commitment to the production and distribution of environmental products on the winning of sustainability awards, and whether it is affected by the effects of the crisis and uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Methodology: Based on a sample of 718 companies from 35 countries and data from 2013 to 2022, a logistic regression for panel data was used.Results: The results show that the production and distribution of environmental products is positively associated with winning sustainability awards, and this effect is slightly stronger in the uncertainty period that characterises the years 2020 to 2022. Sustainable packaging initiatives and end-of-life recovery and recycling initiatives are the attributes with the greatest weight in external recognition, although the latter starts to become relevant in the uncertainty period. Furthermore, both producing and distributing sustainable products and winning sustainability awards have a positive and significant impact on customer satisfaction.Limitations: The sample consists of the world’s largest companies, so the results might differ if smaller companies were analysed. The dependent variable is binary, which did not allow us to examine in detail the impact of environmental products on companies’ external recognition.Practical implications: The results may encourage managers to produce and distribute sustainable products to increase external recognition and customer satisfaction and provide guidance on the attributes to be developed. They could guide policy-makers in making companies more resilient to crises by encouraging them to innovate environmentally in their products.