Although sustainable manufacturing practices are often implemented due to regulatory pressure, extant findings indicate that the benefits of their implementation are evident in firms whose behaviour is truly oriented towards environmental protection and sustainability. This paper aims to contribute to existing knowledge on sustainable manufacturing by understanding the role of innovation activities, which are recognised as an inevitable part of the transformation to sustainability, in implementing and maintaining long-term sustainable manufacturing orientation. The hypothesis is that innovation activity determines firms’ decisions regarding the future implementation of sustainable manufacturing techniques. The results show that continuous focus on sustainable manufacturing is most likely in firms that innovate with process and organisational innovations, as well as those that report higher R&D intensity. The most relevant predictor of orientation towards sustainable manufacturing is process innovation that encourages f irms to implement these techniques continuously but also decreases the probability of complete aversion towards sustainable manufacturing.
Ljiljana Božić (Thu,) studied this question.