Firms' eco-innovation and Industry 4.0 technologies in urban and rural areas

We investigate the extent to which the firms’ propensity to eco-innovate, adopt Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and leverage them to eco-innovate varies with their location. We maintain that urban firms should be more prone to ecoinnovate and adopt I4.0 technologies than rural ones, and more capable to make the latter functional to the former. Using a large sample of European firms, we test and confirm these hypotheses only partially. Firms in rural areas display a higher capacity to ecoinnovate notwithstanding their lower digital propensity. However, an urban location reinforces the eco-innovative impact of digital technologies, irrespectively from its size.