## 2 Previous Surveys on the Application of EMAS in European Firms  
Several studies have been conducted to understand the impact of the EMSs on firms' performance. Frequently, surveys focused on drivers, benefits, and barriers to their achievement. There are a variety of factors identified by scholar to implement an EMS that can vary significantly due to firms' size, sector, and national or regional context [21]. It is important to keep in mind that results obtained from an EMS implementation can vary significantly in relation to companies' sector, dimension and national context [15; 22]. Many authors focused on its application in SMEs [17; 23; 24; 25; 26]; others stressed how its impact is different as regard to the sector of application [27] or the institutional contest [28]. Another aspect to consider is the market in which companies operate: export oriented companies tend to gain greater benefits from the certification [29]. Motivations, benefits, and barriers can also be grouped as internal and external to the company. While the firsts focus on the internal operations,the others put their emphasis to the outcome of the EMS that relate to the external interactions of the organization [17; 30]. The impacts on firms of the application of ISO 14001 have been deeply investigated by scholars. Recent works concerning benefits of ISO 14001 implementation are [27; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41]. Scholars also investigated barriers and constraints to ISO 14001 adoption and maintenance [25; 27; 30; 33; 34; 37; 39; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45]. Conversely, not many surveys deepen organizations' perception of EMAS implementation. Therefore, this Paragraph focuses on findings from organizations registered with the EMAS regulation. Since the EMAS regulation was published, several surveys have been conducted, considering drivers, benefits, and difficulties in its implementation by European organizations. Some studies focused on specific countries, especially those in which EMAS is more widespread, like Germany [15; 20; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50] and Italy [19; 21; 51; 52; 53; 54]. On the other hand, fewer analyses took into consideration several countries, giving a more general European overview on EMAS organizations [55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61]. Conducting surveys, scholars investigated the impact of EMAS both in terms of difficulties and barriers, and in relation to positive outcomes with its implementation. External barriers to EMAS implementation are mainly of two kinds: a lack of market and consumer recognition, and a low institutional support. Sometimes firms do not recognize convenience respect to ISO 14001, which is more required from supply chain partners [51; 62]. Firms do not have benefits regarding GPP and tenders [63]. Given the European nature of EMAS, it does not add value in extra-UE markets, even after the introduction of EMAS Global [49; 57; 62]. Moreover, organizations in many cases declared difficulties in achieving an efficient communication of their efforts to external stakeholders (consumers and costumers), not allowing a competitive advantage on the market [53]. Concerning internal aspects, firms agree about the low normative simplifications and incentives offered with EMAS [49; 57; 60]. In addition, they do not perceive a positive differentiation in terms of inspections carried out by public authorities [49; 53; 57; 62; 64]. With reference to internal barriers to EMAS introduction, implementation costs represent a crucial obstacle for SMEs [17; 51; 57; 62; 64]. Also the lack of organizational culture in firms is found as an impediment to EMAS renewal [62; 63; 64; 65]. Probably one of the main barriers is the requirement of legislative compliance to obtain the registration. In fact, organizations must demonstrate the complete normative conformity [57; 62; 63; 64]. According to [PERSON], three macro areas of positive external outcomes regarding EMAS implementation can be grouped: commercial interactions, communication, and environmental performances [17].