This article investigates the relationship between the environment-related efficiency and export performance according to the recent international trade theory which has offered to a theoretical model to quantify the Ricardian comparative advantage. We find that the energy and environmental efficiency can be a source of the comparative advantage in industries. The largest magnitude and the smallest of the efficiency on exporting are estimated to be NOx and energy efficiency, respectively. The empirical results further show that the efficiency has a smaller impact on export performance in relatively less footloose industries, and the impact of the efficiency is found to depend on industrial characteristics. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.