Supply Chain Sustainability—Drivers, Inhibitors, Solutions - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 66

that this can happen in highly regulated but innovating industries, such as airplane
production (Leitner et al. 2010 ).
Innovations (also eco-innovation) may contribute to competitive advantage.
Improving environmental performance may help to gain first-mover advantage and
providing market leadership. Thus, a majority of evidence seems to conclude that,
for most measures of performance, environmental regulation does in fact have
a positive impact. It should be noted that the evidence is not 100 % conclusive
(Ramanathan et al. 2010 ). The question which environmental policy instrument
really has a positive effect on performance and innovation should be adopted
remains inconclusive (Leitner et al. 2010 ).
Regulation and policy instruments are innovation friendly when they fulfill cer-
tain criteria (Leitner et al. 2010 ):
• regulations should provide both an normative and informative content, they
should help to translate the environmental demand into specific rules or give an
issue exact guidelines to polluters and eco-innovators as to what is expected,
• they must create the maximum opportunity to innovation, leaving the approach
to innovation to industry,
• the regulatory process should leave as little room as possible for uncertainty at
every stage,
• new regulations can't surprise managers,
• new regulations can't be changed shortly before they are introduced,
• regulations should be predictable, stable and realistic,
• regulation should not locking in any particular technology,
• the innovation process must be strongly linked with actions aiming to change
regulations to obtain a “match” with new technology.
3.5 Other External and Internal Drivers of Eco-Investments
There are external and internal drivers of eco-investments. External drivers of eco-
investments and other green supply chain practices can be classified into a few
major groups:
• regulations,
• government support (e.g., grants),
• consumers and customers pressure (positive PR),
• suppliers,
• competitors pressure.
These are the primary drivers of increasingly managing sustainability.
Environmental innovations may be divided into policy (first two points) and
technology-induced (through contacts with external entities). For many research-
ers eco-regulation is the primary driver of eco-innovation. Regulation is the most
important stimulus for innovation with other incentives such as cost reductions,