me 59 Numbers 11-12 December 2016Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 2016 R Routledge Vol. 59, No, 12, 2231-2250, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09640568.2016.1139491 emanate, Public regulatory relief and the adoption of environmental management systems: a European survey Francesco Testa™, Ifiaki Heras-Saizarbitoria’, Tiberio Daddi*, Olivier Boiral® and Fabio Iraldo* “Institute of Management, Sant 'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy; "Department of Management, University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU, San Sebastian, Spain; “Faculté des sciences de l’administration, Department of Management, Université Laval, Pavillon Palasis- Prince, Québec, Canada (Received 12 April 2015; final version received 31 December 2015) An increasing number of organizations across the world have adopted Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) based on certifiable standards, notably the European Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) and the ISO 14001 standards. Although the specialized literature has studied the motivations, obstacles and benefits of the adoption of these standards for EMSs extensively, the impact of the public incentives on the adoption of such environmental management tools has been overlooked. In order to fill this gap in the literature, this article aims to shed light on the level of companies’ knowledge and application of the main regulatory relief initiatives provided by public administrations around the EU for organizations with a certified EMS. For that purpose, this article summarizes the main findings of a survey carried out with the participation of 244 European EMAS-registered organizations. The findings of the survey highlight the fact that most of the surveyed companies have adopted or benefitted from some form of regulatory relief, mainly by making use of the measures granting an extended duration of some permits (44%), reductions in financial guarantees in the waste-treatment sector (31%) and tax reductions (26%). Moreover, it emerges that, among countries, the role of regulatory relief to support companies in the path to the adoption of EMSs is not univocal. Keywords: environmental management; environmental management. system; regulatory relief; incentives; public administrations; EMAS; ISO 14001 1. Introduction More and more organizations are adopting Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) based on voluntary international standards (Curkovic and Sroufe 2011; Iraldo et al, 2011; | Teng, Wu, and Chou 2014; Testa et al. 2014). ISO 14001 has become the most popular and frequently used international standard for implementing EMSs worldwide. Since its launch in 1996, ISO 14001 certification has experienced intensive growth on the international stage. By the end of 2011, at least 301,647 certificates had been issued in 171 countries (ISO 2014). From 2000 to 2010, the number of certificates issued worldwide increased nearly 11-fold, although there are differences in the growth rate of certification depending on countries and sectors of activity (Marimon et al. 2011). Unlike the ISO 14001 standard, the development of the EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) has been limited to European countries. Launched by the EU in 1995, this *Corresponding author, Email: f.testa@sssup..it © 2016 University of Newcastle upon Tyne2232 F, Testa etal. standard had been adopted by June 2013 by 4,155 organizations, corresponding to 8,376 sites, notably in Germany, Spain, Austria and Italy (European Commission 2013), the four member states that could be described as frontrunners in terms of the adoption of this standard. Many studies have focused on the main drivers underlying the adoption of these standards (e.g. Yin and Schmeidler 2009; Johnstone and Labonne 2009; Boiral and Gendron 2011; Ervin et al. 2013). Similarly, the benefits and the impact on organizational performance of these standards have been widely studied in the academic empirical literature (e.g. Russo 2009; Guoyou ef al. 2012; Iraldo, Testa, and Frey 2009). Although most studies have highlighted the positive impacts of the adoption of EMSs (e.g. Iwata et al. 2010; Nishitani et al. 2012; Testa e¢ al. 2014), various studies have questioned the benefits of EMSs or stressed the absence of measurable effects (e.g. Bansal and Bogner 2002; Boiral 2007; Melnyk, Sroufe, and Calantone 2003; Massoud et al. 2010; Zobel 2015). Surprisingly, the study of the impact of the public regulatory reliefs on the adoption of these international standards for environmental management has been lacking in the empirical academic literature. As recently underlined by Heras-Saizarbitoria, Dogui, and Boiral (2013) in their integrative review, clear answers are still missing for elementary questions such as the real influence of regulatory relief and public grants in the adoption of EMSs based in both ISO 14001 and EMAS. Moreover, public authorities can exert a coercive pressure on organizations by adopting a clear signal of their support of an EMAS scheme by including regulatory reliefs for EMAS or ISO 14001 in national legislation (Glachant et al. 2002), by directly financing the adoption of projects aiming to remove the obstacles and barriers affecting organizations (Delmas 2002), However, non-previous studies have fully investigated the impact of an incentive mechanism for supporting EMAS adoption included in national laws. Finally, in the literature, several studies have stressed that many barriers — generally categorized into external and internal ones — impede the EMS adoption. In particular, external barriers include a wide set of factors such as the lack of competitive rewards and advantages, the lack of recognition by public institutions (including regulatory relief) and the lack of economic incentives (including funding) (IEFE Bocconi et al. 2006; Salomone 2008; Balzarova and Castka 2008). Therefore, shedding light on the real level of knowledge and application by the companies of the main public initiatives to provide regulatory relief would provide relevant and useful insights to both scholars and policy- makers that analyze the adoption of EMSs. In order to fill this gap, this article aims to analyze the specific case of the public promotion of EMAS in the EU. It provides a perspective based on extensive empirical work carried out with 244 European EMAS-certified organizations. More specifically, this article sheds light on the level of companies’ knowledge and application of the main regulatory relief initiatives provided by public administrations around the EU for EMAS-registered organizations. This issue is central to understanding the motivations underlying EMAS adoption. Taking into account that EMAS and ISO 14001 are two similar models regarding their components and requirements (Kollman and Prakash 2001; Morrow and Rondinelli 2002; Ridolfi et al. 2008; Petrosillo et al. 2012), this paper raises important and unanswered questions in the general literature on EMSs with regard to the impact of regulatory relief measures in explaining regional differences in adoption. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The next section analyzes, in depth, the literature on the motivations to adopt EMS standards and the role of public Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2233 incentives. The section on methods describes the approach employed for collecting and analyzing data, Finally, the main results of the field work are summarized. The final section presents the discussion and the main contributions and implications of the paper. 2. Literature review and research questions In this section, we analyze the scholarly literature about ISO 14001 and EMAS, as both have been widely used in order to raise research propositions related to the adoption of EMSs (Tsoulfas and Pappis 2006; Testa et al. 2014; Heras-Saizarbitoria, Arana, and Boiral Forthcoming) and even data for both the standards for EMSs have been used together (Kollman and Prakash 2001; Wagner 2003; Lewandowska 2011; Lannelongue et al. 2015). Similarly, from the practitioner perspective, the similarities of both reference standards to adopt EMSs have been widely underlined (e.g. Whitelaw 2004). Furthermore, the adoption of ISO 14001 and EMAS has been rather equally considered in order to give grants by several national and supranational public administrations (e.g. ‘Watzold et al. 2001; Glachant e¢ al. 2002; Heras et al. 2008; Allur, Heras, and Laskurain 2013), a relevant issue for the scope of this article. Regarding the motivations leading companies to adopt EMSs based on international standards such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, one of the main streams of research is based on the neo-institutional theory, which stresses the role of external pressures. Companies can adopt new structures or practices because of coercive, mimetic or normative institutional pressures (Di Maggio and Powell 1983). According to this view, the quest for social legitimacy and social recognition explains the implementation of certifiable EMS such as the ISO 14001 and EMAS standards (e.g. Bansal and Bogner 2002; Jiang and Bansal 2003; Delmas and Toffel 2004; Boiral 2007; Boiral and Henri 2012; Heras-Saizarbitoria, Dogui, and Boiral 2013). For instance, public institutions can strongly influence a firm’s decision to adopt a certified EMS by acting as a coercive force and sending a clear signal of their endorsement of EMAS or ISO 14001 (Delmas 2002; Delmas and Montes-Sancho 2011; Neugebauer 2012; Castka and Prajogo 2013), or by reducing the barriers to the adoption by a set of reward systems, such as the introduction of regulatory relief in national legislation. More specifically, the literature has shown the importance of improving the external image of companies (Schylander and Martinuzzi 2007; King, Lenox, and Terlaak 2005; Poksinska, Dahlgaard, and Eklund 2003; Testa er al. 2012), the influence of coercive pressure from customers (Corbett and Kirsch 2001; Jiang and Bansal 2003; King, Lenox, and Terlaak 2005; Gonzdlez-Benito and Gonzdlez-Benito 2008) and the role of public administration (e.g. Chan and Wong 2006; Shin 2005; Uchida and Ferraro 2007, Delmas and Toffel 2008). The influence of public administration has been essentially associated with coercive power based on formal and informal pressures (e.g. Henriques and Sadorsky 1999; Delmas 2002; Iraldo et al. 2011). Few studies have underlined that government agencies could set up the ISO 14001 and EMAS certifications of EMSs as a prerequisite for bidding for large public and environmentally sensitive projects (Chan and Li 2001; Steucke 2000; Fet, Michelsen, and Boer 2011; Testa, Battaglia, and Bianchi 2012). The literature has also focused, to a lesser extent, on the internal sources of motivation such as the organizational capability, search for competitive advantage, employee involvement and cost reduction which can lead organizations to adopt certifiable EMSs (e.g. Zeng et al. 2005; Nishitani et al. 2012; Delmas 2001; Darnall, Henriques, and Sadorsky 2008; Curkovic and Sroufe 2011). For example, relying on institutional theory and on a resource-based view of the firm, Darnall, Henriques, and Sadorsky (2008) found2234 F. Testa et al. that both institutional pressures and internal resources and capabilities encourage a more comprehensive adoption of an EMS. Despite the many studies on the motivations of EMS implementation, there is no clear consensus in the empirical literature as to which are the main drivers to the adoption of a certified EMS (Heras-Saizarbitoria, Dogui, and Boiral 2013; Ervin et al. 2013). Moreover, although international standards to implement EMSs are often considered to be a self-regulatory mechanism (e.g. Christmann and Taylor 2001, 2006; Potoski and Prakash 2005a, 2005b; Prakash and Potoski 2006, 2012), the influences of public administrations in the adoption of these systems remain understudied. The lack of connection to other types of literature aimed at analyzing the practical implications of public administration policies is surprising. This lack is especially notable if literature of both an institutional nature — namely reports published by international organizations such as the European Commission and the United Nations (e.g. Haufler 1999) — and a scholarly nature, the latter being published when these kinds of initiative for environmental management were launched (e.g. Wiitzold et al. 2001; Glachant et al. 2002; Steger, Schindel, and Krapf 2002). Public administrations can encourage organizations to adopt EMSs through various means or initiatives, such as reducing the technical barriers to EMS adoption (e.g. public programs aimed at improving the knowledge on these tools for SMEs), enhancing direct benefits derived from EMS adoption (e.g. incentives in public contracts and bids), public subsidies and grants (e.g. grants to subsidize the implementation and/or the certification costs) and rewarding EMS implementers with reduced enforcement (c.g. regulatory relief). According to Glachant et al. (2002), in the initial phase of its dissemination, the adoption of the EMAS standard in Europe depended on public policies, more specifically the subsidies and regulatory relief for EMAS companies. The European policies on regulatory relief and the initiatives on the reduction of the administrative burden for organizations were summarized at the EU level under the common umbrella of “better regulation” policies (Hey, Jacob, and Volkery 2007). More than a decade ago, Morrow and Rondinelli (2002) identified regulatory relief as one of the main drivers of EMAS organizations in Germany, analyzing a case study composed of five domestic energy and gas companies. Conversely, such incentives have been very limited in France, where the concentration of EMAS registrations is comparatively low. Steger, Schindel, and Krapf (2002) also noted, more than a decade ago, that in certain countries, where the number of certificates is high, such as Germany and Spain, government authorities tend to transfer their responsibilities to industry through market-based instruments such as EMAS. Similarly, Potoski and Prakash (2005b) identified regulatory relief as one of the benefits obtained by the companies in the United States that adhere to voluntary programs such as IS014001: These forms of incentive were supported by the national governments as well as the American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). More recently, Daddi et al. (2014) described the case of Italian regulatory relief as a lever to spread the adoption of EMAS. Their research described the initiatives adopted in Italy and classified them into four different categories: simplifications in permit-issuing procedures, reduction of administrative costs, reduction of financial guarantees, and tax reductions. Their results show an increase in the EMAS number after the introduction of these simplifications even though it is not clear if this increase can be linked completely to the regulatory incentives provided by Italian policy-makers. However, as stated above, in the empirical literature over the last decade, studies on the influence of these public incentives in the adoption, of the main standards for EMSs Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2235 have been very limited and focused on some specific geographical areas (e.g. Steger, Schindel, and Krapf 2002; Daddi et al. 2014). In order to fill this gap, this article analyzes comparatively the specific case of the public promotion of EMAS in the European Union from an empirical perspective. More specifically, the main research questions raised are the following: RQI: Which level of knowledge and application do companies have of the main public initiatives to provide regulatory relief for registered organizations as a means to promote the adoption of EMAS? RQ2: Are there variations in relation to the previous variables (ROI) among different EU member states? RQ3: Are there variations in relation to the previous variables (RQI) depending on the size and/or the sector of activity of the registered organizations? 3. Methods In order to answer to these research questions, we exploited data collected by an empirical survey aimed at EMAS-registered organizations from different countries of the EU. This study is part of the BRAVE (Better Regulation Aimed at Valorizing EMAS) project, which is intended to analyze the various experiences of EU countries in promoting the EMAS system, The aim of the project is to investigate the dynamics and relationships between determinants and effects of the EMS, together with the role that regulatory relief plays in pushing for EMAS adoption. ‘A questionnaire was designed based on the previously mentioned literature. Several questions were included to investigate the role of regulatory relief for EMAS-registered organizations and to answer to our research questions. First, in order to understand the level of diffusion of such incentives, we asked if respondents were aware of the existing regulatory relief in their country. Second, to understand their diffusion, we asked which regulatory relief packages were used by EMAS organizations. Then, since regulatory relief can be an important driver to push an organization to adopt a certified EMS (Delmas 2002), we asked about the extent to which regulatory relief was a motive in the adoption of EMAS. Finally, in order to get valuable policy suggestions, respondents were asked to indicate which further public incentives would be appreciated in addition to those that already exist in the national and regional regulations. Because studies have shown that question formulation may alter results by as much as 50% (Cannell eg al. 1989), the questionnaire was pre-tested. Since the questionnaire concerned the adoption of an EMS and its drivers and benefits, five ISO 14001-certified companies (four Italian and one Spanish company operating in the waste management, pulp and paper, and construction sector) were interviewed and the questionnaire was filled in the presence of trained researchers who took notes of each doubt, misunderstanding and remark. The choice to involve ISO 14001-certified companies and not EMAS-registered companies was due to their knowledge about the topic of the questionnaire and on their non- participation in the survey. Based on the pre-tests, the survey instrument was revised and simplified and validated by members of trade associations involved in the BRAVE project meetings. The questionnaire was then presented to 3,936 EMAS-registered organizations. The email addresses of the contact persons for each organization were identified from the European Commission’s EMAS register. This survey was carried out between September 2012 and March 2013. The questionnaire was emailed to the environmental manager anda 2236 F, Testa etal. further reminders were sent in the following months. Moreover, the European Commission and other key stakeholders (i.e. the EMAS Club Cataluna and the project’s partners) promoted the survey by publishing the questionnaire on their websites. The questionnaire was designed taking into account the potential problems of common method variance that can affect behavioral research. Several procedural remedies were adopted to reduce bias such as avoiding vague concepts, complicated syntax and unfamiliar terms, keeping questions simple, specific and concise, and guaranteeing respondent anonymity (King and Bruner 2000). By the end of the survey, 224 correctly filled questionnaires were collected with a general average response rate of 6%. Response rates between 15% and 25% — but with low absolute numbers — were obtained in several member states, such as Denmark, Portugal and the Czech Republic. This general rate of response can be interpreted as positive if we consider two factors. First, it was calculated with reference to the whole statistical population — as the proper European Commission is in charge of maintaining the data base of EMAS-registered firms — and not with a random sample (as in Welch, Rana, and Mori 2003; Zhu, Sarkis, and Geng 2005; Franchetti 2011, among many others) or with a total population of certifications obtained from national certification bodies that tend to be incomplete due to several biases (e.g. Marimon, Casadestis, and Heras 2006; Casadesus, Marimon, and Heras 2008). Second, it has to be considered that our study is based on a pan-European Union Survey aimed at analyzing the adoption of EMAS in several member states of the European Union. Therefore, in this type of study focused on big economic areas, the response rate tends to be significantly lower than for national surveys, due to several factors such as the distance of the respondents. Nevertheless, the representativeness of the sample was checked against the general characteristics of the population, such as organization size and geographical distribution. We found that the sizes of the organizations tended to be similar, and there were more organizations from Mediterranean countries than from Central Europe compared to the population of all the organizations in the EMAS register (Table 1). Additionally, response bias was explored by applying the method proposed by Armstrong and Overton (1977) who suggest splitting the sample into early and late respondents. This exercise revealed that the demographic profiles of the organizations into the two groups were similar and also the answers to the questions included in the study were statistically similar. Thus, we can reasonably affirm that the data set used in this study is not biased. However, an element to be taken into account in the analysis of data is the high percentage of answers from Italian organizations, due to the high knowledge of BRAVE partners among the Italian EMAS organizations. The low response rate of organizations located in the other two frontrunner countries, Germany and Spain, can easily be explained. The submission of the questionnaire in English and the execution of a similar survey carried out by the National EMAS Competent Body in the same period’ could Table I. Survey sample versus the total population of EMAS registered firms. Size Geographical distribution Southern Western’ Eastern Northern Small Medium Large Europe Central Europe Europe Europe EMAS Population 53% 28% 19% 54% 42% 2% 2% Sample 50% 27% 23% = 68% 24% 4% 4%. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2237 Table 2. Brief demographic profiles of respondent organizations. ‘Number of respondents 244 Size (number of employees) Micro 1-10 11% Small <50 36% Medium >50 and <250 27% Large >250 23% Not answered 2% Sector of activity ‘Manufacturing 48% Agro-food M% Environmental and energy services 24% Other services 21% Not answered 1% Source: Compiled by the authors have discouraged German companies from responding. Moreover, the response rate for Spanish organizations, which is lower than the average response rate for the survey, is in line with lower response rates in previous surveys on EMSs in Spanish firms (e.g. del Brio et al. 2001; Bellesi, Lehrer, and Tal 2005). The RQI was analyzed by using descriptive statistics whereas the influence of territorial context as well as organization’s size and its sector of activity was tested by performing the Mann—Whitney U test. It is a non-parametric test, which does not require normal distributions, and which tests the dependence of two samples that come from the same population by comparing their mean (Weiss and Weiss 2012). A brief demographic profile of the characteristics of the surveyed organizations is provided in Table 2. 4. Results 4.1. Awareness on existing regulatory relief The study reveals that the public incentives, such as regulatory relief, grants and tax reductions, are known by 64% of the respondents (see Table 3). Analyzing the data at the geographic level, it was found that more than 50% of the organizations operating in Italy, Spain, Germany and Austria are aware of the normative relief for registered companies (75%, 54%, 81% and 64%, respectively). In particular, in Italy and Germany, this positive difference from the mean value is statistically significant, highlighting a strong effort by policy-makers to support the adoption of certified EMSs by introducing regulatory relief to reduce the administrative burden and reward the environmental commitment of EMAS-registered organizations. In the so-called “follower” countries, about 38% of organizations are aware of the existing regulatory relief, a percentage statistically lower than the average value of the sample and much lower than the frontrunner countries. By considering the size of the registered organizations and the distribution across sectors, the results reveal that only small differences exist. Micro and medium2238 F. Testa et al. Table 3, Percentage of organizations aware of regulatory relief by member state, size and sector. Mann-Whitney Yes No Mean Utest. Country Germany 81% 19% 0.857 = Italy 15% 25% 0.751 al Austria 64% 26% 0.700 - Spain 54% 46% 0,538 - Follower countries 38% 62% += 0.379 as Size Micro 1-—10 78% 26% 0.740 - Small <50 51% 43% 0.574 - Medium >50 and <250 15% 25% 0.746 ae Large >250 64% = 26% = 0.642 - Sector Manufacturing 68% 32% «= 0.679 - Agro-food 59% 41% + — 0.588 - Environmental and energy services 69% 31% 0.694 Other services 58% 45% 0.547 : Total 64% 36% 0,648 i Source: Compiled by the authors Note: *, * and ‘** indicate the significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively organizations have a higher awareness of existing public incentives to adopt EMAS than large and small organizations. This outcome was not expected as large organizations were expected to have the highest awareness (as they have more resources, for example, qualified human resources) and the micro companies the lowest ones. However, a possible explanation can be put forward: micro firms that decide to adopt EMAS must benefit from all potential benefits offered by their institutional environment, otherwise they could hardly overcome the existing barriers to adopt the standard; on the contrary, large organizations tend to have more economic resources and since significant economies of scale in EMS adoption costs have been detected in empirical studies (e.g. Barla 2007), they are less aware of the incentives to adopt the EMAS standard. By sectors, manufacturing firms and energy and environmental service providers have a slightly higher knowledge of public incentives. 4.2. Utilization of public incentives Regarding the level of utilization of public incentives by the surveyed organizations, it has to be underlined that only 40% of the organizations have used any of the aforementioned public tools or initiatives (Table 4). At the geographic level, the most significant data were those for Italy and Austria, where more than 50% of the organizations in the sample declared that they had utilized the measures of regulatory relief (50% and 54%, respectively). This percentage is 40% in Germany and 30% in Spain, and down to 16% in the EMAS organizations located in the follower countries. In the latter case, the difference is also highly statistically significant, highlighting a different approach among policy-makers between frontrunner and follower countries. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2239 Table 4. Percentage of utilization of public incentives to adopt EMAS by state, size and sector. Mann—Whitney Yes No Mean Utest. Country Germany 40% 60% 0.400 ~ Italy 530% 50% 0.503 * Austria 54% 46% © 0.545 - Spain 30% 70% 0.296 - Follower countries 16% 84% 0.161 a Size Micro 1~10 41% 59% 0.413 7 Small <50 40% 60% 0.402 - Medium >50 and <250 42% 58% 0.424 - Large >250 38% 62% 0.385 - Sector Manufacturing 42% — 38% 0.422 - Agro-food 18% 82% 0.176 ie Environmental and energy services 52% 48% © 0.525 a Other services 28% 72% 0.280 oe Total 40% 60% 0.400 W Source: Compiled by the authors Note: *, “* and “** indicate the significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively. Similarly, the size of the organization does not seem to determine to a significant extent the level of knowledge of public incentives. In contrast, our results show that the sector of activity plays a significant role in increasing the level of utilization of public incentives. Approximately 50% of organizations providing energy and environmental incentives (i.e. waste treatment or wastewater purification organizations) declared that they used such relief. This was quite expected, considering, for example, the regulatory relief introduced in Italy concerning the reduction of the amount of financial guarantee that a waste treatment organization must have in order to obtain the environmental permit to start activity. Moreover, agro-food and service organizations show a low level of utilization of public incentives, 18% and 28%, respectively. On the one hand, this is quite expected as the design of regulatory relief is mainly focused on the most polluting sectors, and on the other hand, because existing incentives do not apply to organizations operating in the agriculture sector. The study included a focus on the types of public incentives most used by organizations. Figure 1 shows that 44% of the organizations confirmed that they take advantage of the opportunity to extend the length of their authorization. Some national authorities provide longer-lasting environmental permits for registered organizations. For example, Italian and Slovak governments have extended the standard duration (five years in Italy and eight years in the Slovak Republic) for Integrated Environmental Authorization to, respectively, eight and ten years for EMAS companies. Also, the Austrian government, in its Forest and Mineral Resources Law, has extended the duration of the environmental permit needed to carrying out mining and quarrying activities. The main impact of this incentive is linked to the reduction of administrative burden and costs required for the preparation of the technical reports needed to ask for the renewal of a2240 F. Testa et al. Extension of permit duration 44% Reduction of financial guarantee required for | carrying our some activities Tax reduction Reduction of inspection frequency Self declaration for renewing a permit Reduced technical reports for obtaining an environmental permit Reduced reporting and monitoring requirements Advantages in public tenders Self declaration for obtaing an environmental permit permit | Fast track permit Other Figure 1. Typology of forms of regulatory relief utilized. Source: Compiled by the authors. permit. This time span between EMAS-registered and -unregistered organizations generates, for the former, a significant resource saving in terms of human resources and consultancy costs, The number of enterprises that utilized the reduction in financial guarantees was also significant (about 32%). Financial guarantees are a relevant regulatory requirement, mandatory for high environmental risk activities. They should assure a local community that a firm has adequate financial resources to cover all costs arising from the adoption of measures to prevent, avoid or repair possible environmental damage associated with its activities. Legislators define the amount of financial guarantee which is, in most cases, proportional to the firm’s or the facility’s size. Many administrative procedures concerning permits on waste, mining and thermal energy activities include a requirement for financial guarantees that a company shall request from a bank by paying an annual interest rate. As mentioned above, national governments have introduced, in different pieces of legislation, a reduction to the amounts of financial guarantees for EMAS- registered organizations. For example, the Italian Legislative Decree 152/2006, the main reference for national environmental legislation, establishes 50% and 40% reductions, respectively, for EMAS and ISO 14001 organizations which operate in international waste transport. There are similar initiatives in Germany and Spain. A Brandenburg Land Act provides reductions up to 20% for EMAS organizations on waste management plant guarantees (Ordinance of 17 July 2007). Spanish Law 26/2007, which introduced a new Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2241 environmental liability administrative regime, has exempted EMAS-registered organizations from presenting a financial guarantee to the competent authorities. A third relevant regulatory relief emerging from our study is a tax or fee reduction that provides a direct economic benefit. Twenty-six percent of the EMAS organizations in the sample declared they had access to some forms of tax reduction. A prominent example of this kind of incentive is the rate reduction for a regional tax on productive activities established by the Tuscany Regional Government (Italy). The regional tax on productive activities (IRAP) was introduced in 1997 (Legislative Decree n446 of 15/12/1997) affecting business revenues in 1998, in order to provide financial support for regional health care. All Italian companies must pay IRAP and each regional government can define the amount and exclusion cases. In Tuscany, starting from 2014, EMAS-registered firms benefit from an IRAP reduction of 0.6% which allows an average saving of approximately €30,000. The geographical data show the prevalence of Italy, Austria and Germany when it comes to using the regulatory relief measures involving the self- certification tool. An analysis of the results shows that, in Italy, the reduction in financial guarantees, longer duration of the authorization and tax reduction are the measures that organizations use most. In contrast, considering the data about Germany, it is evident that the reduction in inspections by the competent authorities and the self-certification for renewal or issuance of permits are the measures that most organizations use. The same was found in Austria, where, along with self-certification for the issuance/renewal of permits and the reduction in inspections by the competent authorities, the reduction in internal auditing obligations was found to be one of the most utilized forms of regulatory relief. In Spain, the measures that organizations used most often were those related to self-certification for the renewal and issuance of permits and the reduction in the technical reports that had to be sent to the competent authorities, but the percentage of organizations that used these measures was found to be much lower in Spain than in Germany and Austria. 4.3. Regulatory relief as a motivation of EMAS adoption As stated earlier, one of the main objectives of the survey was to shed light on the role of public incentives in the adoption of a certified EMS. This section also aims to compare the interests of the organizations in these measures with respect to other aspects that have pushed them to obtain registration. Twenty-three percent of respondents declared that the possibility of access to regulatory relief measures contributed, along with other factors, to the organization’s decision to obtain EMAS registration. In contrast to this, there were those who did not consider regulatory relief to be a motivation to obtain certification (77%), but instead indicated other factors such as competitiveness, the opportunity to inorease efficiency and effectiveness. The analysis of the role of the public regulatory relief as an incentive for EMAS adoption shows that these measures were an important motivation for a significant percentage of organizations in Austria (55%). In Germany (28%) and Italy (27%), the role of the public regulatory relief was less important. Only a few Spanish EMAS companies (7%) considered regulatory relief to be a relevant motivation for obtaining EMAS registration. In the follower countries, just 13% of surveyed EMAS organizations considered regulatory relief to be one of the drivers of EMAS adoption (see Table 5). As in the previous questions, size is a relevant factor that influences the role of regulatory relief as an important motivation, while the sector of activity also shows relevant differences. Only 6% of surveyed organizations operating in the agro-food sector2242 F, Testa et al. Table 5. Regulatory relief as a motive for obtaining EMAS registration by state, size and sector. Yes, itis at least Mann—Whitney one of the reasons No Mean Utest. Country Germany 27% B% 0.266 - Italy 28% 12% 0.283 a Austria 55% 45% 0.454 id Spain ™m 83% 0.074 = Follower countries 13% 87% 0.129 " Size Micro 1-10 21% 79% 0.206 - Small <50 22% 78% 0.218 = Medium >50 and <250 26% 74% 0.257 - Large >250 23% 1% 0.228 - Sector Manufacturing 25% 78% 0.247 Si Agro-food 6% 94% 0.058 ad Environmental and energy services 29% 71% 0.288 = Other services 17% B% 0.175 - Total 23% 77% 0.226 I ‘ompiled by the authors. and *** indicate the significance at the 10%, 5% and 1% levels, respectively. declared that regulatory relief was a motive for EMAS adoption, while almost 30% of environmental and energy providers consider it an important driver to obtain EMAS registration. Comparing the role of the public incentive measures with the other possible motivations in the decision to adopt a certified EMS (improvement of the organization’s image, customer pressure, improvement in relations with the authorities, improvement in internal organization, etc.) has already been highlighted in the literature review. There the study found that, for a significant proportion of the surveyed organizations, public incentives played a significant role, In particular, 37% of the surveyed companies said these incentives were important and 6% said they were very important. The data show that 63% of companies attributed relatively little importance to this kind of incentive, while 50% attributed no importance at all. The geographical data show that, for most of the organizations located in the various states, the role of public incentives was important with respect to other motivations. For about 50% of the organizations operating in Germany and 35% in Italy and Austria, public incentives played an important role with respect to other motivations, figures that contrast strongly with the data for Spanish organizations (20%). 4.4. Most preferred regulatory relief Finally, our study investigated which further regulatory relief would be appreciated in addition to those measures that already exist in the national and regional regulations. The measures that were most desired (70%) were the introduction of new forms of tax cuts, the reduction in technical reports to be sent to the competent authorities (44%) and the reduction in controls (42%) (see Table 6). Tax reduction generates an immediate economic benefit, while fewer information requirements and lower inspection frequency Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2243 Table 6, Public incentives most preferred by certified organizations in addition to those currently existing, Follower Total Germany Italy Austria Spain countries Further tax reduction 10% 46% 78% 70% 55% 55% Reduction of technical reports 44% 54% 48% 30% 32% 35% Reduction of inspection frequency 42% 38% 48% 50% 9% 38% Permit renewal by self-certification 41% 31% 46% 70% 32% 31% Extension of environmental permit duration 36% 46% 38% 40% 13% 31% Reduction of mandatory internal monitoring 18% 30% 18% 20% 13% 10% Source: Compiled by the authors. also provide significant benefits for companies, which explains this high level of appreciation. Production activities with any kind of environmental impact on air, water and/or soil are obliged to give regular information related to their environmental performance to the competent body on environmental matters in order to check and validate the quality, coherence and reliability of data provided (ie. periodic communication to E-PRTR European Emissions Register, control reports derived from the application of the Integrate Environmental Authorization, periodic notifications on waste and discharges, periodic progress report on contaminated soil, etc.). A reduction in communication requirements may acknowledge the monitoring efforts carried out within an EMS and avoid duplication of documents, as well as ensuring an inefficient use of the organizations’ time and human/economic resources. The benefits related to a reduction of environmental inspection frequency are quite obvious. Above all, control activities require the involvement of the plant manager and environmental department employees to support inspectors and reply to the questions arising during the inspection. Therefore, a reduced frequency generates time savings and a more efficient use of human resources. In addition, firms may experience cost savings related to environmental analysis carried out by external laboratories, specialized consulting services to answer inspectors’ requests formally, and use of equipment or production lines to conduct tests or to sample activities. Other forms of regulatory relief indicated as preferred by 41% and 36% of the organizations interviewed are related to simplification of the procedure for getting environmental permits, such as the use of self-declaration for renewal of an environmental authorization or the extension in its duration. As mentioned in Section 4.2, and similar to other regulatory relief selected by respondents, introducing simplification in the environmental permit procedure may generate relevant savings in terms of time, human resources and costs. Finally, the least desired proposal was a reduction in internal auditing obligations, about which the companies expressed little interest. All interviewed organizations, regardless of their geographical location, would appreciate further tax reductions. The interest in this type of incentive is strongly felt in all the European States, especially in Italy (78%) and in Austria (70%), where a high percentage of those interviewed indicated this measure to be among those which would be most appreciated. In Italy, tax relief measures are already in place at the regional level and reductions in the financial guarantees required are often operational, for example, for2244 F. Testa et al. waste treatment plants. Organizations in Austria and Italy also confirm an interest in promoting reduced controls in favor of EMAS enterprises and in the use of forms of self- certification for the renewal of authorizations. Organizations operating in Germany expressed themselves in favor of a reduction in technical reports (54%) and an extension to the duration of environmental permits, while Spanish organizations show a lower interest in most of the incentives. 5. Discussion and conclusions The findings of our survey indicate that the public incentives are closely connected to the adoption of certified EMSs. Furthermore, from the survey it can be inferred that the diversity of incentives and regulatory measures adopted can have an influence on the adoption of certified EMSs. For example, the possibility of providing public regulatory relief for companies that adopt a standard-based EMS has two effects: it valorizes the environmental commitment of organizations by reducing the administrative burden to which they are subject, and it simplifies the bureaucratic apparatus for all organizations, citizens and public administrations. Giving a general overview on the findings described in our paper, we can observe that although the EMAS organizations are aware of the incentives available, they do not consider the current situation sufficient reward for their efforts in the EMAS system and for that reason they would like to have additional initiatives in this field. From a theoretical perspective, our results confirm the role of institutional pressures in pushing the adoption of environmental practices (e.g. Delmas and Toffel 2004; Henriques and Sadorsky 1996; Bansal and Bogner 2002; Jiang and Bansal 2003). The knowledge and use of regulatory relief are significantly higher in EMAS organizations operating in the leading countries in terms of numbers of registrations. This evidence supports the strategic role, underlined in the literature, that public authorities can exert by signaling their endorsement of particular environmental practices (Delmas 2002). Moreover, valuable implications for policy-makers and other practitioners emerge from this work. The first implication is related to the type of regulatory relief that is expected by the EMS adopters. This provides useful indications for policy-makers about the design of effective incentives. By considering a time perspective and looking at the categories of regulatory relief described in Section 2, we can conclude that certified organizations would benefit from regulatory relief that has a long life more than lump sum public subsidies and grants. In the first years of the dissemination of the EMAS scheme, some policy-makers approved several initiatives to reimburse the initial certification costs of companies. However, many companies were looking to the years after obtaining the registration as a “jump in the dark” from the point of view of incentives. Only a few long-term awards were introduced to keep the organizations motivated to maintain their certified EMS over the years, and without this kind of incentive they can feel abandoned by the public institutions that promote the spread of that instrument. In contrast with these short-run incentives, other incentives, such as tax reductions, reduction of technical reports to be submitted to public administrations and reduction to the frequency of inspections, have an impact over the whole lifetime of the adopted certification. With regards to this type of measure, we could change the term “incentive” to the term “reward”, as the certified organizations can see recognition by the public authorities of their commitment to the continuous improvement of environmental performance. This attitude can be linked with the high approval rate for tax or inspection Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 2245 frequency reductions. These initiatives can be considered by the organizations not only as a driver to decide to adopt a certified EMS but also as a reward for the following period. A second main implication derives from the limited diffusion of regulatory relief in Europe, despite the fact that they are demonstrably effective in promoting the spread of EMSs such as the ones based on EMAS (Daddi et al. 2014) and they are welcomed by the companies, as shown by our results. Regarding this aspect, some considerations emerge related to RQI and RQ2 which have been analyzed in our work. In particular, public institutions are motivated to promote the adoption of EMAS through regulatory relief, although different relief measures are used in different EU member states. In this field, a key issue is linked with the legislative power available at the different vertical levels of the public administration that sometimes constitutes a barrier to the aforementioned promotion. The planning of inspections, the technical documents needed to request a permit and the issuing of permits are often managed at local level. Local Institutions are also the frontline authorities that work in direct contact with the companies, discussing and receiving requests about how to improve economic and environmental policies. Even if these institutions are often able to adopt regulatory relief, in many cases they are not in a legislative position to adopt it. In many cases, they need a legislative reference in the national legislation to adopt regulatory relief for a particular category of companies. In this situation of uncertainty regarding the legislative powers over a simplification initiative for certified organizations such as EMAS-registered ones, the local administration may lean toward more conservative behavior to avoid future problems with the administration at the higher vertical level (e.g. region, state or European Union). For this reason it is very important for policy-makers that the simplification initiative starts at the highest level of administration. A recent positive example in this field is given by the approval of the European Directive on Industrial Emissions (European Commission 2010). This Directive, which had to be implemented in the European member states by the beginning of 2012, anticipates the use of EMAS registration as a means to be considered to reduce the frequency of environmental inspections in the companies in the scope of the Directive. At the date of publication of this article, many member states have already introduced in their legislative frameworks for this regulatory relief and the local public administrations have the guarantee that simplifications at the local level will be recognized. Likewise, RQ3 aimed to investigate whether the regulatory relief and administrative simplifications for EMAS organizations showed any variation across the sectors of activity of the registered organizations. The results of our research show how these benefits are present mainly for the industrial sector while they are quite absent for the agro-food sector. Therefore, since food products have one of the highest environmental footprints (Tukker et al. 2006), policy-makers should also focus on designing attractive regulatory relief for agro-food companies in order to increase the spread of the EMAS scheme in a sector characterized by a very limited number of EMAS adoptions. Finally, some limitations of this paper should be mentioned, as they could be closely connected with avenues for future research. Despite the response rate of the study is in line with previous researches of the field, it could be a limitation on the study due to potential problems of data validity, as underlined in the section on methods of the article. Similarly, in the revised version of the article, we have included a specific comment about this issue in that section. The information used in this paper is based on the perceptions of managers who have taken part in the process of adopting the EMS, so the results may be influenced by the social desirability bias of the respondents, as recently underlined in the literature of the field (e.g. Heras-Saizarbitoria, Molina-Azorin, and Dick2246 F. Testa et al. 2011; Gémez and Rodriguez 2011; Heras-Saizarbitoria and Boiral 2013; Testa er al. 2014). For example, an examination of the incentives to adopt EMAS based on the opinion of other key stakeholders such as auditors, consultants, and middle and top managers not directly involved in the adoption process of EMSs, among others, may be relevant. Likewise, our study does not investigate why many governments decide to use regulatory relief as an incentive to the adoption of certified EMSs and others do not. Future research, by adopting a multiple case study could analyze the motivations for this decision. Despite the strong similarities between the ISO 14001 and the EMAS frameworks, further research focused on ISO 14001-certified companies might be advisable. The importance of the regional dimension (e.g, the importance of the specific regional policies) should be also taken into account as many regional differences have been identified in the few institutional studies on this topic that have been published (e.g. European Commission 2013). Moreover, since the level of integration or internalization of certified EMSs in daily practice varies across adopters (Heras-Saizarbitoria, Dogui, and Boiral 2013), researchers may focus on the role of regulatory relief in the internalization of the certified EMS, in order to clarify the role of these instruments and avoid superficial and ineffective adoption. Beyond the analysis of the characteristics of the public regulatory relief initiatives associated with the adoption of EMSs, the raison d’étre of those measures and other public incentives (e.g. public programs of subsidies and grants) should also be analyzed as scholarly works (e.g. Boiral 2007; Ahlstrém, Macquet, and Richter 2009; Heras-Saizarbitoria, Dogui, and Boiral 2013), and consumer and environmental NGOs (e.g. ANEC and ECOS, 2009) have questioned the real potential and relevance of these tools for environmental management. Disclosure statement ‘No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors, Funding This article is a result of the Life-B.R.A.V.E. project funded by the European Commission - Life Programme, and also a result of a Research Group funded by the Basque Autonomous Government (Grupos de Investigacién del Sistema Universitario Vasco, Grant number [IT763-13/IT 1073-16]. Note 1. 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