The Factors Affecting the Environmental Practices of Companies: The Case of Serbia

Environmental practices are often considered external to the business, and the impacts of self-regulation and other CSR company practices on environmental practices are important but not fully understood—especially in transitional and developing countries. The aim of this paper is to explore factors that influence the environmental practices of companies operating in Serbia. We observed four types of self-regulations (core values, codes of conduct, ISO 9001, and ISO 14001); the level of CSR practices in relationships with employees, customers, the local community, and society, and related to business transparency; as well as company features related to types of operations (manufacturing vs. service), size, and internationalization (multinational ownership and export activities). Based on the SEM analysis of data collected from 178 companies operating in Serbia, the findings showed that smaller, manufacturing companies that applied the observed types of self-regulations, which have a higher level of employee relations and are more social and community involved, are more likely to have higher levels of environmental practice. Among the observed self-regulation types, only ISO 14001 certification proved to have an individual effect on company environmental practices. However, our results also showed that the influence of core values, applied codes of conduct, and ISO 9001 certification cannot be neglected.