Medio Ambiente y competitividad: estado del arte en el ámbito internacional

Abstract

Environment is becoming an important factor when competing in international markets due to customers’ actual demands and developed countries’ legislation. However, there are companies that still consider the environmental issues as a factor that reduce their returns and, subsequently, their competitiveness. Thus, this paper tries to discuss firstly the obstacles that affect implementation of ecological strategies and procedures. At a second stage, it tries to elucidate whether the supposed costs of implementing environmental improvements to the business processes actually pose a loss on companies’ competitiveness. For that purpose, this paper will rest on the review of the relevant empiric literature about the relation between environment and competitiveness in an international scenario.