# Drivers, Barriers and Benefits of the EU Ecolabel in European Companies' Perception
## EU Ecolabel Drivers, Benefits and Barriers: Evidence from the EU Ecolabel Evaluation Survey
### Barriers
It is worth stressing again that, as seen in previous points, companies deem that the lack of high market returns and incentives by public institutions (fiscal incentives and easier access to public procurement) are far more important barriers than costs. Companies see the issue more in terms of a reduction of the market costs through supporting funding, i.e., through fiscal incentives such as tax abatements in order to reduce market prices with benefits for final consumers. In summary, reducing market costs via financial incentives seems to be more promising than reducing the financial administrative costs. Criteria stringency and the lack of human resources are not perceived as major problems by EU Ecolabel Licence holders. Licence holders also do not consider the EU Ecolabel difficult to communicate to the market and to stakeholders. As for Non-Licence holders, although agreeing with Licence holders when considering the amount of documentation required and the EU Ecolabel's general lack of recognition and public incentives, they give far greater importance to the criteria requirements of the EU Ecolabel being too stringent and give this as a major barrier. For barriers, we have also applied the Mann-Whitney U test, which, in this case, shows some relevant divergence in the perception of the two groups (Table 3). In particular, there is an opposite view on such issues as the complexitiy of the documentation required by the EU Ecolabel and the lack of support (which has been experienced much more by those companies that have obtained and maintained the EU Ecolabel), and for the stringency of the requirements that, on the opposite side, is perceived as a barrier more by Non-Licence holders. (Table 3). If the responses are broken down by Licence holders size (Figure 9), differences do emerge. SMEs show a higher agreement with the concept that the EU Ecolabel lacks support in terms of both external incentives and recognition by public institutions. The amount and complexity of documentation together with the lack of recognition at the European and international level and of competitive rewards on the market are also seen as major barriers to apply for the EU Ecolabel. Larger companies see the main barriers as relating to the volume and complexity of the documentation required. Larger Licence holders also agree with the lack of incentives, including fiscal incentives, easier access to public procurement and the lack of competitive paybacks as being the major barriers. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Barriers**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Weighted Mean**} & \multirow{2}{*}{**Mann–Whitney U Test**} \\ \cline{2-2} \cline{3-4}  & **Licence Holders** & & **Non-Licence Holders** \\ \hline Cost of the application & 3.54 & 3.35 & - \\ Cost of the EU Ecolabel licence & 3.20 & 3.05 & - \\ Too much documentation & 3.84 & 3.47 & - \\ Complexity of documentation & 3.74 & 3.11 & - \\ Requirements are too stringent & 3.11 & 3.58 & - \\ Lack of human resources & 2.98 & 3.31 & - \\ Lack of technical and information support & 3.17 & 2.70 & - \\ Lack of external incentives & 3.73 & 3.47 & - \\ Lack of competitive rewards & 3.69 & 3.29 & - \\ Lack of stakeholders recognition & 3.37 & 3.29 & - \\ Lack of public institutions recognition & 3.55 & 3.47 & - \\ Lack of international recognition & 3.50 & 3.17 & - \\ Too difficult to communicate & 3.18 & 3.05 & - \\ Too many individual criteria & 3.20 & 3.23 & - \\ Criteria do not address relevant env. impacts & 2.98 & 2.76 & - \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Barriers—License holders and Non-License holders—Mann–Whitney U test. For larger Licence holders, the criteria requirements themselves and the potential lack of human resources are not major barriers when considering the adoption of the EU Ecolabel.