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Purpose: Ocean plastic pollution has increased scrutiny towards businesses that produce plastic packaging. The article presents the perspective of businesses alongside those of consumers concerning packaging sustainability, as these two areas are fundamentally related.

Method: A mixed-methods approach consisted of an interview with a plastic packaging design manager, an action research group of packaging industry professionals and a survey (of 1000 UK consumers) and focus groups to investigate similar issues from a consumer perspective.

Findings: The business research showed that they feel frustrated by emotional arguments against plastic that push towards alternative packaging formats that have greater negative environmental impacts. They also highlighted problems of inconsistent recycling infrastructure and the need to communicate the benefits of packaging more effectively to consumers. The consumer research identified high levels of awareness of ocean plastic pollution but a lower understanding of the properties of different packaging materials. Many do not yet look for the most sustainable packaging when shopping and feel that retailers must take more responsibility for reducing environmental degradation from the packaging.

Originality/Value: The study provides a new perspective on packaging sustainability issues by combining the views of industry and consumers. In doing so, it acknowledges the different human influences on environmental outcomes. A realist conceptual model highlights the potential mechanisms triggered within different contexts. While the research is just a snapshot of views on selected topics, it conceptualises various components of the relationship between businesses and consumers to identify different aspects of the problem for further research.

Stakeholders require organisations to meet all ethical standards in every aspect of their operations including marketing. This has led to consumers becoming sensitive to the violation of expected ethical standards by organisations. Hence, consumers give precedence to brands that are environmentally friendly in the production and deployment of the brand. The increased customer sensitivity to environmental issues is the realisation of the negative effects of mismanaged environment. For example, the activities of eco-unfriendly businesses affected the human and economic survival of some communities (see Gomis & Sodji, 2021; Naz, Chowdhury, Mishra, & Gupta, 2016). In realisation of the importance of being eco-friendly in the entire value chain of a product, this chapter considers the importance of adhering to ethical standards required from the conceptualisation, consumption and disposal of materials in organisation's production system. The chapter began by laying out the consequences of eco-unfriendly behaviours and the human and business activities that create the problems. It documented the short-term and long-term consequences of unethical behaviour of businesses, and ways to mitigate or reduce such consequences. Corporate social responsibility was presented as a mindset that is aimed at maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem while deriving economic benefit from it. The chapter concluded with the case study of a disguised company that believes that ‘money can grow on trees’ and thus invested in the recovery of the damage caused by deforestation.

This chapter aims to discuss the key issues of green entrepreneurship in tourism (GEiT), paying special attention to the environmental performance of green entrepreneurs and its relationship with strategy, brand reputation and long-term business growth.

Literature review is conducted on conceptual issues and several hotels first-hand experiences that were categorised to provide readers with business-world examples.

This chapter highlights how small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs are the agents who started green innovation initiatives and how larger corporations tested and validated them. A myriad of small green interventions awaits to be undercovered and implemented. Most of them can bring financial improvements to the entrepreneurs as the required initial investments are not necessarily high.

This chapter is explorative in nature, based on a literature review and interviews-based analysis of consolidated green initiatives, most of them being successful ones.

The forces driving green initiatives are identified and classified. Most important categories of green entrepreneurs are described and emphasis was placed on the managerial and marketing benefits linked to green initiatives and action plans.

This chapter presents models and concepts in an integrated way, facilitating a useful knowledge for prospective entrepreneurs wishing to acquire a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges related to eco-friendly business.

This chapter presents an exploratory study aiming at understanding how the largest multinational enterprises (MNEs) engage small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their (inclusive) business strategies, either as suppliers, distributors, customers, innovators or as a target of their (Corporate Social Responsibility) CSR policies.

We explore the implicit or explicit strategies of 100 largest companies in the world towards SMEs as mentioned in their annual and CSR reports. This approach takes in particular stock of the ‘narratives’ developed by MNEs as an expression of their intended and (perceived) realised strategies.

The analysis of company statements show a country of origin effect in that European firms are clearly amongst the leaders in experimenting with inclusive business strategies that include SMEs. However, their number still remains limited. Sectors like banking and retail have developed the most interesting examples that are also spread over a large number of functions.

Although the results are not yet very radical, the developed taxonomy for the different types of approaches in which MNEs take a more or less active position towards SMES provides material for further studies. It can be applied in studying leading (better-practice) cases in order to help policy makers and business strategists to develop better business models for inclusive growth.

Initiating a practical model for embedding transformative learning in education that will promote sustainable development is a challenge for higher education. Siam University decided to assign a task force with the mission to work with communities in order to propose guidelines of learning for sustainability (LfS) based on real-life experiences. Selected communities which have agreed to be the community living labs for teaching and learning activities of the university were chosen based on the Bray and Thomas’ Cube Model. There are differences in sizes (number of members), locations (urban, suburban), and histories (old settlement with long history and rich culture and the newly settlement communities consisting of migrated members). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) was applied in the study. The initial model was developed from the synthesis of experiential work with communities in sustainability-related projects. After revision, the “Learning for Sustainability Action Model” was proposed. Success factors in implementing the model were also suggested.