Interest from academics, policy–makers and practitioners in eco-innovation has increased as it enables the optimization of the use of natural resources improving competitiveness and it provides a conceptual framework for corporate sustainability. In this context, this paper provides an in-depth analysis and a wide classification of the specific indicators for the integrated measurement of eco-innovation projects in business from a resource-based view (RBV). The specific metrics were tested to measure the economic-financial and environmental resources and capabilities applied by five Spanish firms to eco-innovation projects, selected as case studies.

Purpose: The environmental management literature has focussed on the analysis of the variety of strategic options with regards to environment protection, without providing an interesting detail of the transformation and change process between the different alternatives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study pro-environmental change processes in firms, focussing on the width and the intensity of environmental measures implemented in a three-year period in different areas (productive process, product, management and supply chains).Design/methodology/approach: Performing a cluster analysis based on a sample of 303 Spanish firms, the study finds four categories of pro-environmental change.Findings: The comparative analysis of these categories leads the authors to describe the pro-environmental change process as one with four stages that firms can go through. The first pro-environmental stage focusses on process measures. The second stage focusses on the adoption of management measures together with process measures. In the third stage, the firm moves after including measures in the product and in the supply chains. Companies that wish to advance further in this process, reaching the fourth stage of pro-environmental change, do so by increasing the intensity of the different measures adopted in previous stages, and through eco-innovation.Research limitations/implications: The main contribution of this paper relative to the previous literature is a more detailed vision of the strategic possibilities in environmental protection, providing information about the process of change and about how firms evolve to more advanced environmental strategy stages. Knowledge of this evolution process, little studied in the previous literature, helps us to understand the complexity and strategic significance of adopting environmental protection measures. This knowledge is useful for academics and for public and private managers responsible for designing and developing environmental strategy.Originality/value: One of the most original findings of this paper points out that it is possible to identify a pattern of environmental change through which firms can evolve. In this change process, firms start by adopting process measures, while they adopt eco-innovation behaviour only in the most advanced stage of environmental proactivity.

The contaminating effects of economic activity and the scarcity of natural resources has led firms to a situation in which corporate strategy has been compromised by environmental issues. The objective of this paper is to analyse some of the factors determining the pro-environmental change process by considering the drivers encouraging firms to progress in environmental protection and the barriers that curb this progress. Using a structural equation model implemented on a sample of 303 firms, our results confirm a direct and positive effect of stakeholder pressure and of the expectations of obtaining competitive advantages from the pro-environmental change process. The results also confirmed the indirect effect of stakeholder pressure on pro-environmental change through managers’ expectations of obtaining competitive advantages, which play a mediating role in the firm’s response. Although managers interpret the barriers we have studied as obstacles to adopting environmental protection measures, they do not prevent any firm from reaching advanced levels of pro-environmental change.