Are environmentally friendly firms more vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic?

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.131781
• Publication Date: 2022-04-19T06:32:03Z
• Authors: Dengjun Zhang; Yingkai Fang
• Keywords: Pandemic; Environmentally Friendly; Sample (material)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected supply and demand to a large extent. Declining for firms' output caused significant financial stress all kinds of firms worldwide. Production that requires environmental measures usually gets constrained when firms, especially small medium-sized (SMEs), have difficulty in accessing credit. Firms thus face the dilemma whether continue behaviors or fulfill commitments suppliers, employees, so on. As such, an empirical question is economic consequences vary by types their behaviors. Using 4,888 sample from 14 EU member states, this study finds evidence severity damage depends on firm size invested pollution abatement techniques. Specifically, eco-friendly perform better during pandemic, SMEs are less vulnerable than firms. In particular, conventional These findings probably related efficacy government relief programs targeted and/or healthy status these prior pandemic.