Does symbolism benefit environmental and business performance in the adoption of ISO 14001?

•This work analyses the link between the ISO14001 and both environmental and business performance.•The symbolic adoption of ISO14001 is the use of standard for legitimizing environmental behavior.•Only substantive adopters showed improvements in both environmental and business performance.

Much research has focused on the organisational and reputational benefits of ISO 14001. However, less discussed is the symbolic adoption that some firms are implementing without experiencing significant reductions in environmental impacts. This work analyses the relationships between the different ISO 14001 adoption profiles (from symbolic profile to factual approach) and both environmental performance and profitability. These relationships are examined using a sample of 1214 manufacturing firms in 7 OECD countries while controlling for selection bias. The results suggest that only ISO 14001 adopters that monitor an extensive set of negative environmental impacts are associated with real improvements in both environmental performance and business performance.