Impact of green product innovation in SMEs on sustainable development

This paper investigates the contribution of green product innovation implemented by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe to sustainable development, and the drivers of SMEs to introduce green product innovation. We selected the following groups of drivers: own financial resources, own green technical expertise, and external support, starting from the results of Flash Eurobarometer report. By applying logit regression to a sample of 12,657 SMEs in 34 European countries (European Union and Western Balkans), we examined how these drivers can influence the increase in the number of SMEs offering green products in the future. The results showed that the greatest impact on increase in SMEs offering green products can have external support and increase in own green technical expertise, as well as an increase in green expertise in combination with an increase in internal financing, while an increase in internal financing alone has no significant impact.