“Firm size and pro-environmental behavior in Cameroon”

Previous studies indicate a lack of analysis of pro-environmental behavior adoption in enterprises of various sizes. Very small enterprises, especially in the informal sector, have always been overlooked in the literature, although they are in the majority in most countries. This paper aims to examine the effects of firm size on pro-environmental behavior adoption in Cameroon. The analysis focuses on a sample of 141,926 firms drawn from the Second General Census of Enterprises (RGE-2) in Cameroon (NIS, 2018). The study adopted a statistical and econometrical approach based on the logit model. The results showed that the adoption of pro-environmental behavior increases with firm size. The probability of having a health, safety, and environment system increases by 16.70 points in large enterprises compared to 8.40 points in small enterprises. The probability of having a wastewater management system increases by 5.30 points in large enterprises compared to 2.30 points in small enterprises. The probability of having an air pollution management system increases by 2.20 points in large enterprises compared to 1.50 points in small enterprises. However, company size does not significantly influence the adoption of a solid waste management system. It is recommended to (i) raise awareness among large companies of the challenges of environmental protection and to strengthen controls on compliance with environmental standards, and (ii) to implement actions aimed at the migration of companies from the informal to the formal sector.

Prime Minister (2013) considers that "environmental and social auditing within the meaning of this decree is understood to be a systematic, documented and objective evaluation of the activities of an entity, structure and facilities of an establishment, their operation and their environmental management system, with a view to assuming responsibility for environmental protection." 3 The Ministry in charge of the environment specifies the periodicity of the environmental and social audit according to the sectors of activity.This audit is carried out without prejudice to environmental controls.
The challenges of protecting natural environments and the health of populations, saving raw materials, and combating global warming tend to make waste management a real source of natural resource savings (Blain & Fries, 2009).Integrating sustainable development issues into business practices in Cameroon is not new.Decree No. 2013/0172/ PM 1 of 14 February 2013 laying down the modalities for carrying out the environmental and social audit 2 requires companies to carry out an environmental and social audit periodically 3 .This exercise aims to assess the impact that all or part of the company has or is likely to have on the environment.The promoter of a project or an establishment must conduct an environmental audit on pain of the sanctions provided for by the laws and regulations in force.For small and medi-um enterprises (SMEs), the regulations recommend that an environmental impact notice be drawn up in accordance with Order No. 00002/MINEPDED of 8 February 2016, defining the standard terms of reference and content of the environmental impact notice (MINEPDED, 2016).
Environmental protection must be a significant concern for companies.Their activities have a considerable environmental impact (liquid, solid and gaseous waste, imbalance in forest, marine, and coastal ecosystems, noise and air pollution, etc.).Thus, to minimize these impacts, companies must voluntarily commit to considering sustainable development in their production process.In this respect, they must, among other things, set up an HQSE (Health, Quality, Safety, Environment) system.Unfortunately, the consideration of environmental protection in the strategy of companies in Cameroon remains low, although the proportion of companies concerned increased by 2.7 points between 2009 and 2016 (NIS, 2018).In fact, only 17.40% of companies reported having an environmental protection mechanism in 2016 compared to 14.70% in 2009 (NIS, 2018).Furthermore, 16.21% of companies reported having an HQSE system (NIS, 2018).Cameroon is no exception to this reality, as 16.61% of very small enterprises have an HQSE system, compared to 39.66% of small enterprises (SEs), 52.18% of medium-sized enterprises, and 57.03% of large enterprises (NIS, 2018).

LITERATURE REVIEW
The industrialization of society has led, for several decades, to the manufacture of products that are increasingly efficient and complex to produce but also to treat at the end of their life.Indeed, the improvement of the intrinsic qualities of products results from the incorporation of substances and/or composite materials; at the end of their use, these products become waste that is more difficult to treat or recover and, ultimately, present a greater danger for the environment (Blain & Fries, 2009).A good can be produced in many sectors of activity, either by using or transforming raw materials or by recycling waste.The decision of companies to integrate pro-environmental behaviors, for example, by replacing the traditional mode of production with recycling, depends on comparing their respective private costs (Henry-Wittmann, 1996).
For a given product, a company compares the cost of extracting and transporting the raw material and transforming it into a finished or semi-finished product and the cost of waste collection and recycling operations.It chooses the mode of production or a combination of modes that enables it to minimize its costs (Henry-Wittmann, 1996).The development of recycling, by requiring recourse to waste that is increasingly difficult to recover, may increase the cost of recycled inputs.At the same time, the reduction in demand for raw materials will weigh on prices, all of which will restore the cost advantage of the traditional produc-tion mode (Henry-Wittmann, 1996).Recycling may also discourage raw material producers, resulting in compromised supplies and firms being forced to recycle more than the cost-minimizing quantities of goods (Henry-Wittmann, 1996).In addition, recycling in certain industries requires the implementation of specific processes.It implies investments that a company will not make without the assurance of maintaining a cost advantage over its previous production mode.Also, waste collection, sorting, and reuse activities are labor-intensive and mainly unskilled (Gillet, 2002).In addition, other reasons have been put forward to justify the relatively weak integration of sustainable development principles in small companies (Ben Larbi et al., 2013): (i) the pressure from stakeholders in the service of sustainable development is weak (non-governmental organizations concentrate their action on large groups, and employee unions act mainly in large companies and the public sector); and (ii) the associated risks of sanctioning behavior that does not comply with sustainable development principles are also weak (particularly the reputational risk, which is a determining factor in large groups, but only very marginally concerns small structures).
SMEs generally have fewer technological, financial, and human resources than larger firms.As a result, they may lack the means to adopt pro-environmental behaviors, including eco-innovations (Galliano & Nadel, 2013).SMEs recognize the lack of financial resources as one of the main barriers to environmental commitment (Hillary, 2000;Bowen, 2002).On the other hand, large enterprises can easily access many resources, which promotes green innovations (Liang & Liu, 2017).consider the environmental aspect a potential source of productivity gains.The practice of recycling, in some instances, makes it possible to decrease raw materials and energy proportion used and avoid the accumulation of waste.It also is one of the main in-struments of an economic policy which, by respecting the environment and sparing natural resources for future generations, makes it possible to increase the general level of well-being without sacrificing growth (Henry-Wittmann, 1996).Collection and sorting activities can also lead to the sale of sorted waste to private companies for processing, e.g., paper waste.
Ben Larbi et al. (2013) show that in France, the environmental issue constitutes the essential axis of sustainable development (71%) for unlisted companies, while the economic (19.4%) and social (9.7%) 'pillars' are considered less critical.This marked preference for the environmental pillar can be explained by actions in favor of the environment, such as waste recycling or pollution prevention, which have a concrete and noticeable impact outside the company.However, Dupuis et al. (2006) show that 93% of SME managers (in the Rhone-Alpes region of France) declare they carry out actions favoring sustainable development.However, a gap may exist between the discourse, will, and implementation.In the same vein, Ben Larbi et al. ( 2013) prove that although more than 90% of company managers are concerned about sustainable development issues, the concept still needs to be better understood since less than 10% of them feel they can define it precisely.This can be explained by the fact that VSEs/SMEs, mainly in the informal sector, are not currently under any legal obligation to report on social issues.This gives their statements a declarative value that is difficult to prove in practice.The study shows that among all the items submitted for assessment by companies, waste management, monitoring of environmental regulations, electronic and computerized document management, and optimization of resources mobilized occupy a privileged place in environmental concerns with a score on a scale of 5, that is higher than the average (3.24).
The practices of VSEs/SMEs, and more generally of informal sector companies, in sustainable development are still insufficiently known.(Sanni, 2018) or Egypt (Mady et al., 2022).All these studies focus on manufacturing firms and do not view very small enterprises, particularly those in the informal sector.
Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of firm size on pro-environmental behavior adoption in Cameroon.Specifically, it aims to analyze the effect of firm size on (i) wastewater management system adoption; (ii) air pollution control device adoption; (iii) standardized recycling or waste treatment system adoption; and (iv) a health, safety and environment system adoption.

METHODOLOGY
This section successively describes the econometric model, discusses the choice of variables in this model, and then presents the data source.The aim is to define an econometric model to measure the impact of firm size on pro-environmental behavior adoption.

Data
The data for this study come from the Second General Census of Enterprises (RGE-2) conducted by Cameroon NIS.Field collection was conducted in late 2016, and the results were disseminated in 2018.The RGE-2 allowed it to count 209,482 economic units in activity and operating in a fixed professional location, divided into 203,419 head office enterprises and 6,063 establishments.Geographically, these economic units are mainly located in the Littoral region (37%) and Centre region (27%) regions, with the metropolises of Douala and Yaoundé accounting for 33.5% and 23.9%, respectively.The regions of Adamaoua, the South, the North, the Far North, and the East are the least provided with economic units.They each account for less than 4% of the total units surveyed.Generally speaking, economic units have a high propensity to set up in urbanized areas with a minimum economic infrastructure to support their activities.Consequently, the departments housing the regional capitals (to which must be added certain historical cities such as Kribi, Kumba, Limbé, and Nkongsamba) are relatively the most endowed with businesses.
As this study focused on the firms that answered the questions concerning pro-environmental behavior and employees number, the sample size is 141,926.

Model specification
According to the economic theory of well-being, the marginal utility can decrease or increase.That is why a discrete choice model inspired by random utility theory was preferred (McFadden, 1974).
This model is presented as follows: The dependent variable representing the environmental protection attitude is dichotomous: Categorical variable models assume that the observed phenomenon manifests a latent variable Y i * unobservable continuous variable.This conceptually leads to an analysis of the variance model on this latent variable; the problem to be solved is the estimation of this model.ε i represents the error term with ε i /σ ε which follows a logistic distribution function F ij (X, β).In this model, the probability associated with the occurrence of an event j is given by: ( ) The distribution function is expressed as a function of the explanatory variables X and the vector of parameters β.
Specifically, this logistic model is: where Y i is the dependent variable; it measures the firm's pro-environmental behavior adoption.The following four variables are used to assess pro-environmental behavior: • WATER takes the value 1 if the company has a wastewater management system and 0 otherwise; • AIR is set to 1 if the company has an air pollution control device and 0 otherwise; • WASTE is set to 1 if the company has a standardized recycling or waste treatment system and 0 otherwise; • HSE takes the value 1 if the company has a health, safety and environment system and 0 otherwise.
TAIL is a quantitative variable that provides information on the size of the enterprise.Its creation was inspired by Law No. 2010/001 of 13 April 2010 on the promotion of small and medium enterprises in Cameroon.Thus, this variable takes the value 0 if it is a very small enterprise (i.e., between 1 and 5 employees), 1 if it is a small enterprise (i.e., between 6 and 20 employees), 2 if it is a medium enterprise (i.e., between 21 and 100 employees), and 3 if it is a large enterprise (i.e., more than 100 employees).
INTER is the dummy variable, which provides information on Internet use within the enterprise.It takes the value 1 if the company uses the Internet and 0 otherwise.
MOMO is the dummy variable that provides information on a firm's use of mobile money.It takes the value 1 if the firm uses mobile money and 0 otherwise.
AGE is a quantitative variable that measures the firm's experience based on age.It takes the value 0 if the firm has been in business for 5 years or less, 1 if it has been in business for between 6 and 10 years, and 2 if it has been in business for more than 10 years.
SACTIV is the qualitative variable that provides information on the sector of activity of the enterprise.It takes the value 0 if it belongs to the primary sector, 1 to the secondary sector, and 2 to the tertiary sector.
OHADA is a variable that provides information on whether the firm belongs to the formal sector.It takes the value 1 if the firm belongs to the formal sector and 0 otherwise.
ENEO is the qualitative variable that provides information on access to hydroelectric power, provided by ENEO 4 .It takes the value 1 if the company is subscribed to the ENEO electricity network and 0 otherwise.
GROUP is the dummy variable that informs about a firm's use of a generator.It takes the value 1 if the company uses a generator and 0 otherwise.
BANK is the qualitative variable, which provides information on the source of bank financing of the enterprise at the time of its creation.It takes the value 1 if the firm benefited from bank financing at the time of its creation and 0 otherwise.
LOC is the qualitative variable that provides information on the rental status of the company.It takes the value 1 if the firm is renting and 0 otherwise.
SEX is the dummy variable that allows the gender of the firm's promoter.It takes the value 1 if male and 0 if female.
SM is the variable that provides information on the marital status of the firm's promoter.It admits the modality 1 if he is married and 0 otherwise.
EDU is a variable that informs about the educational level of the firm's promoter.It takes the value 0 if he/she has no diploma, 1 if he/she is a graduate of primary education, 2 if he/she is a graduate of secondary education, and 3 if he/she is a graduate of higher education.
As regards the size of the enterprises, 97.80% are very small enterprises, 1.60% are small enterprises, 0.4% are medium enterprises, and 0.2% are large enterprises.Also, 3.10% of the enterprises are engaged in informal activities.Firm size significantly influences pro-environmental behavior adoption in models 1, 2, and 4. Pro-environmental behavior adoption (wastewater management system, air pollution management system, solid waste management system, and a health, safety and environment system) has also been significantly influenced by (iv) the source of bank financing of the enterprise at the time of its creation; (v) Internet access; (vi) access to mobile money; (vii) the firm's experience; (viii) the sector of activity of the enterprise; (ix) the belonging to the formal sector; (x) access to hydroelectric power; (xi) the firm's use of a generator; (xii) the firm's rental status; (xiii) the firm's promoter sex, (xiv) the firm's promoter marital status; and (xv) the firm's promoter educational attainment.

DISCUSSION
The coefficients of the TAIL variable are all positive and significant in models 1, 2, and 4. The proportion of firms with an HSE system increases with company size.The same analysis is made for wastewater management and air pollution control systems.These results do not align with previous studies conducted in Africa (Sanni, 2018;Mady et al., 2022).This confirms that the implementation of environmental protection system is not costless; it often imposes costs that can be prohibitive for small businesses.In Cameroon, the costs of the ESA and NIS are borne by the firm's promoter.The fee for the review of the terms of reference of the NIE cannot exceed 50,000 CFA franc.The sum of the fees for the examination of the NIE report may be at most 100,000 CFA franc; in addition, there are charges for administrative corruption.
The variable OHADA has a positive and significant coefficient in models 1 and 2. Formal sector firms are more likely to implement an HSE or wastewater management system.The result of the conducted research coincides with the opinion of Chen et al. (2018b), which shows that in China, the level of the shadow economy is positively and significantly related to environmental pollution.These authors indicate that an increase in administrative corruption can weaken environmental regulation, leading to the expansion of the informal sector and, ultimately, to an increase in environmental pollution.
The coefficient of the variable BANK is positive and significant in models 2 and 3. Firms that received bank financing at the time of their establishment are more likely to set up a wastewater or solid waste management system.This result highlights the role that credit institutions can play in environmental protection.Environmental sustainability is central to some banks' social responsibility and efforts in Cameroon.Some banks have environmental policies, objectives, and practices that help to guide their activities at all levels.
Environmental awareness is integrated into various banking operations, loans, products, services, and community activities.The banks' activities range from participation in conservation projects in communities across the country to commitments to recognized Cameroonian and international standards to reporting arrangements.Some of these banks are subsidiaries of the major banking groups 5 that have committed to the "Equator Principles" (an international standard on social and environmental issues in project finance).
The influence of gender on pro-environmental behavior adoption is mixed.Indeed, the coefficient of the variable SEX is positive and significant in models 1, 3, and 4. Firms managed by men are more inclined to set up an HSE, waste management, or air pollution control systems.However, it should be noted that men are less likely to have a wastewater management system.However, the results contradict Han and Chen (2021), who show that the gender of a firm's promoter has no significant effect on pro-environmental behavior.
Marital status also has mixed effects on pro-environmental behavior.Indeed, the coefficient of the variable SM is negative and significant at the 1% level in model 1.This reveals that a firm's probability of implementing an HSE system decreases when a married person manages it.In contrast, this coefficient is positive and significant at the 1% level in models 2, 3, and 4. Thus, firms managed by married people are more likely to adopt wastewater management, solid waste management, and air pollution control.
The firm's promoter education attainment (EDU) has mixed effects on pro-environmental behavior adoption.In models 1 and 4, the coefficient on the 'higher education' modality is positive and significant.Thus, the probability of setting up an HSE or air pollution control system increases if the firm's promoter is a higher education graduate.However, in model 3, this coefficient is rather negative and significant.This indicates that firms headed by university graduates are less likely to implement solid waste management.The results oppose Han and Chen (2021), who prove that the firm's promoter educational attainment does not significantly influence pro-environmental behavior.
The coefficient of the variable INTER is positive and significant at the 1% level in models 1 to 4. The probability that a firm adopts pro-environmental behavior increases for those with access to the Internet.The coefficient of the MOMO variable is also positive and significant at the 1% level.Thus, firms using mobile money are more likely to adopt pro-environmental behaviors.The digital revolution has brought its share of environmental problems.The Internet and smartphones, which are now indispensable tools, are not very good for the planet.But only some things are red on the digital balance sheet.While polluting, the Internet also helps raise awareness of climate issues and pro-environmental behavior.Advice, practical guides, and other information can be used to educate on pro-environmental attitudes.
The coefficients of the variable SACTIV are negative and significant at the 1% level.The probability that a firm adopts pro-environmental behaviors decreases for firms operating in the secondary and tertiary sectors.Focusing on the manufacturing sector, Sanni (2018) shows that the different branches of this activity do not significantly influence pro-environmental behavior adoption, in this case, the practice of eco-innovation.On the other hand, Galliano and Nadel (2013) show that, compared to the firms in the agri-food branch, the firms operating in the production of capital goods branches are more inclined to adopt pro-environmental behavior.However, companies in the transport branch show less interest in sustainable development.
The coefficients of the variables ENEO and GROUP are positive and significant at the 1% level in model 1.This shows that firms that subscribe to the hydroelectric network and have a generator are more inclined to set up an HSE system.On the other hand, in model 3, the coefficient of the variable GROUP is negative and significant.Thus, the probability of putting a solid waste management system in place decreases for firms using generators.
The influence of firm age on pro-environmental behavior adoption is mixed.Indeed, the coefficients of the AGE variable are positive and significant in models 1 and 3. Thus, the probability of setting up an HSE or waste management system increases with the firm age.On the other hand, the coefficients of this variable are negative and significant in models 2 and 4. Older firms are likelier to implement wastewater management and air pollution control systems.Overall, the results do not align with Han and Chen (2021), who show that pro-environmental behavior adoption increases significantly with firm age. 6 The total assets of the company assets are all the rights and property that a company owns, including fixed assets, receivables, and cash.
A sensitivity analysis of the results was conducted by replacing the number of employees (TAIL) with the turnover of the enterprises (TAIL1) as an indicator of enterprises size.The variable TAIL1 takes the value 0 if the firm has a turnover of less than 10 million CFA francs, 1 if its turnover is between 10 and 50 million CFA francs, and 2 if its turnover is greater than 50 million CFA francs.It should be recalled that Law No. 2010/001 of 13 April 2010 on promoting small and medium-sized enterprises in Cameroon defines VSEs, PEs, MEs, and EGs according to the number of staff or turnover.In doing so, Table 4 shows that the econometric results recorded are mostly identical to those in Table 3.Some studies have measured firm size not by the number of employees or salaried staff but rather by taking into account the total assets of the firm 6 (Li et al., 2019).
Although the study's results provide insight into some of the critical factors affecting pro-environmental behavior in Cameroon, there is a limitation related to the absence of some explanatory variables.They include pro-environmental attitudes, subjective norms or social pressure, regulatory pressures, collaboration with stakeholders (suppliers, customers, and service providers in charge of managing the firm's waste), environmental accreditations, and expenditures related to environmental protection.

CONCLUSION
The production activity of the enterprise is directly related to compliance with environmental standards, maximum income from production, and reducing the environmental impact.Based on the analysis results, essential conclusions were made regarding the relationship between firm size and the adoption of pro-environmental behavior.
The results showed that the probability of adopting pro-environmental behavior increases significantly with firm size.The paper also concludes that formal sector firms are more willing to adopt pro-environmental behaviors.This shows, on the one hand, that very small businesses and SMEs, which are the majority in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, are less involved in environmental protection.On the other hand, they escape the controls of the Ministry of environment, protection of nature, and sustainable development.In addition, findings have shown that access to bank financing is vital.Hence, banks have a major role in educating their clients (firms or individuals) about sustainable development upstream of their investment projects.Finally, Internet and mobile money access can also favor pro-environmental behavior adoption.This confirms the role of information and communication technologies in preserving the environment.Given the above, it would be appropriate to (i) raise awareness among large firms of the challenges of environmental protection and strengthen controls on compliance with environmental standards; (ii) implement actions aimed at the migration of firms from the informal to the formal sector; (iii) encourage credit institutions to develop ecological banking instruments; and (iv) improve business access to essential Internet and mobile money services.

4 ENEO:
Energy of Cameroon.This firm provides hydroelectric power in the Cameroon market.

Table 3 .
Logit model results