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The purpose of this paper is to find the optimal environmental quality criteria for a strategic eco-labeling authority with three objectives (i.e. maximizing the aggregate environmental quality, maximizing the industry profit and maximizing the social welfare). Particularly, the authors investigate how the existence of imperfectly informed consumers affects labeling criteria determination and competition among firms.

A game-theoretic modeling approach was adopted in this paper. A three-stage sequential game was modeled and backward induction was used to solve for a subgame perfect Nash equilibrium. To investigate the impacts of the existence of imperfectly informed consumers, the equilibrium, if all consumers are perfectly informed of the eco-label, was studied as a benchmark.

A more strict eco-labeling criterion improves revenues for both the labeled and unlabeled firms. It is interesting to find that the eco-labeling criteria to maximize industry profits are stricter than the criteria to maximize social welfare. Moreover, when the fraction of imperfectly informed consumers increases, the eco-labeling criteria to maximize aggregate environmental quality or industry profits will be more strict, while the criteria to maximize the social welfare will be looser.

The authors analyze the equilibrium strategies for firms against the eco-labeling criteria certified by authority with different objectives. The obtained optimal labeling strategies could provide insightful guidelines for the certifying authority to select the best suitable labeling criteria to achieve its goals.

With the rising concern of safety, health and environmental performance, eco-labeled product and service are becoming more and more popular. However, the long and complex process of eco-labeling sometimes demotivates manufacturers and service providers to be certificated. The purpose of this paper is to propose a decision support platform aiming at further improvement and acceleration of the eco-labeling process in order to democratize a broader application and certification of eco-labels, also to consolidate the credibility and validity of eco-labels.

This decision support platform is based on a comprehensive knowledge base composed of various domain ontologies that are constructed according to an official eco-label criteria documentation.

Through standard Resource Description Framework and Web Ontology Language ontology query interface, the assets of the decision support platform will stimulate domain knowledge sharing and can be applied into other applications. A case study of laundry detergent eco-labeling process is also presented in this paper.

The authors present a reasoning methodology based on inference with Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) rules which allows decision making with explanation.

Over the last ten years voluntary labelling schemes such as energy labels and eco‐labelling have become increasingly popular within the property sector. However, since the schemes are voluntary in nature their success generally depends on the environmental response of both the property owner and the facility manager. This paper discusses the prerequisites for introducing a successful energy and eco‐labelling scheme in Hong Kong. The paper also introduces a cost‐benefit analysis associated with Hong Kong’s accredited criteria for eco‐labelling. Finally, the paper examines the controversial issue of linking eco‐labelling to property valuation.

This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of corporate sustainability reporting strategies and communication tools that are increasingly being adopted to foster green market outlets, with focus on the building materials supply chain.

The suitability, feasibility, appropriateness, effectiveness, completeness and redundancy of some of the most common sustainability reporting tools such as Sustainability Reporting (SR), Sustainable Development Indicators (SDI) and Green labels based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) were investigated.

Focusing on the present Italian situation and with emphasis on ornamental stones, ceramic tiles, cement and concrete producers, the interest and the response in the building materials supply chain are highlighted, pointing out strengths, weaknesses and future perspectives.

Green communication tools discussed in the paper can also be used to protect local markets against the unfair competition by those producers that can supply low price building products, but with much higher environmental externalities.

The paper can be considered as a contribution to support the European Commission's and Member States' policymakers which are pushing for instruments that will improve the sustainability of the building products supply chain. The findings can encourage those producers who are more aware of the environmental consequences of extractive and manufacturing activities and that are actively engaged in Sustainable Development.

Environmentally adapted lubricants (EALs) have been a slowly growing segment of the lubricants business since the early 1970s. The evolution of environmental thinking has led to the change of focus, from biodegradability to renewability. In the future, the focus will be more on fuel economy and lower emissions. Technical development drivers include the availability of suitable base fluids and additives for lubricants formulation and the adaptation of technical standards, OEM specifications and eco‐labels. Important non‐technical development drivers include environmental management tools and eco auditing. Environmental policy, and procurement guidelines for cities and government organizations, clearly has a large impact. EALs have been repeatedly heralded as one of the few future growth segments of the lubricants business, hence the relatively large increase in R&D activity over the last decade. In sales terms, growth has been slow, limited by high cost and several other factors. For a good future development, both technical and political hurdles must be overcome.

There is an increasing awareness among manufacturers to make production more sustainable in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. Manufacturers are now urged to not only focus on the business profit but also concern on environment protection by producing green products. However, issues may arise regarding the preferences of customers on green products, which will vary due to the influence of cultural values. This will give an impact on the marketing of green products. The aim of this study is to identify the influence of cultural values on the green products design in Malaysia and Indonesia.

A pretest on the survey instruments was performed to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. The collected data were statistically analyzed based on the satisfaction level, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.

The results showed that customer preferences in Malaysia were mostly influenced by uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation and power distance, excluding collectivism and masculinity. In Indonesia, the dimension of uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation had significant influence, whereas power distance, masculinity and collectivism dimension had no influence. Eco-label was identified as the most important factor for green products in Malaysia and having product services characteristics factor for product lifetime extension in Indonesia.

For practices, the cultural values and preferred characteristics identified in this study provide valuable information to policymakers and businesses on what draws customers toward green products in Malaysia and Indonesia. This finding can be used as supported data for the policymakers in order to achieve sustainable development goal (SDGs) in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The findings of this study provide valuable information for designers to design products with green characteristics that cater to the consumer market in Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as other countries which may have similar cultural traits.

The “most economically advantageous tender,” as defined in the EUʼs public procurement directives, allows public purchasers to combine environmental aspects, price and other award criteria in decision making. The directives do not, however, determine how the environmental criteria should be built. Indeed, there could be different means to assess the “greenness” of competing tenders, and these various measurements of environmental impacts may lead to different assessments of the most economically advantageous tender. In this article, the determination of environmental award criteria is examined through a case study on a purchase of a goods transportation service, where the most economically advantageous tender is calculated by life cycle assessment and the environmental cost calculation method suggested by the EU, and compared to the results gained by the purchaserʼs equation. Also the contribution of the weighting for the “green” purchasing decision is discussed.

To apply a consumer‐based approach to the study of the underlying concepts involved in social enterprises.

The report aimed to examine social enterprises from the consumer’s point of view and address the question of how social enterprise can make its case for consumer support. Pays particular attention to market segmentation, including: the ethical marketplace; under‐served markets; companies; public sector; voluntary sector; and consumer agents.

It is suggested that there are three schools of thought on how social enterprises should be promoted: the first focusing on social enterprises as “ethical businesses”, with the term used as an umbrella term for a wide range of firms practising corporate social responsibility (CSR); the second emphasising the role of social enterprise in trading for a social purpose; and the third focusing on social ownership.

Future research may be directed towards further investigating the market analysis and testing of the concept, identifying the core brand and value proposition of a label, and identifying business plan models for viable growth, including its impact on social enterprise development and growth.

Provides a valuable contribution to the social enterprise literature which tends not to take a consumerist viewpoint.

The aim of this paper is to conceptualise a structural model of natural resource based green supply chain management (GSCM), and its relationship, with an indication of cause and effect, to relevant performance measures and drivers.

The literature, describing GSCM from a natural resource based view (NRBV), along with performance measures and institutional drivers, is critically evaluated and used to develop the model.

Constructs are identified in terms of intra‐ and inter‐organisational environmental practices, performance measures and institutional drivers. Causal relationships, within and between the constructs, are also proposed in the form of hypotheses.

At this stage the model is purely conceptual and the causal relationships are only proposed. Empirical tests of the model and hypotheses are required.

On empirical verification, this work can furnish managers with validated measurement scales to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in their GSCM implementation and determine how firms can successfully implement GSCM to promote sustainable industrial development.

GSCM from within the NRBV perspective, and incorporating performance measures and institutional drivers, has yet to be comprehensively synthesised in a coherent model. This conceptual work is the first step in that direction.