Cross-country diffusion of the ISO Energy Management Standard: How important is the neighbourhood effect?

This study examines the uneven spread of ISO-50001 standards at the country level with sample size of ninety-six (96) countries from 2011-2019. For the empirical estimation, we applied probit regression to analyse the reach of the certification across countries, and the negative binomial regression to analyse the intensity of diffusion. The findings show that infrastructural and institutional quality facilitate the ISO standard’s diffusion. Countries with more developed energy sectors are more than expected to have a greater level of energy management certification. Furthermore, the diffusion of the certification is strongly affected by the geographic location of a country. The number of ISO-50001 certificates in a country is linked to the intensity of the certification in the neighbouring countries. We also found the neighbourhood effect measured in terms of distance-weighted corticates in other countries as a strong predictor of the diffusion process.