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This study seeks to investigate issues transpiring in green hotels from a human resource perspective which is unlike most green-hotel studies centering on consumer behavioral subjects. It hypothesizes that the employees’ green ability consisting of environmental awareness, environmental knowledge, and environmental skill creates a positive impact on hotels’ green ability and ultimately on the overall performance of hotels. Using alumni from a tourism and hospitality program, this study collects 233 responses from a structured questionnaire survey. The findings indicate that hotel employees approximately contribute toward a fifth of the hotels’ ability to implement greener practices.

This case highlights the green agriculture initiative of the Honliv High Tech Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. towards agriculture environmental protection and better life. In this process, the Honliv Company confronted many difficulties, such as addressing the green transformation concerns of the team, identifying the sustainable agriculture target, the project selection of red globe grape products, the planning of a demonstration vineyard and green marketing. Nevertheless, with the Red Globe Grape of the “Honliv brand” had won the certification of China’s “Grade A” green food mark, and its green marketing initiatives, such as the “picking and demonstration model” had won people’s identification. The company was awarded the honorary titles of “Red Globe grape planting demonstration base with the Chinese characteristics” and “pollution-free science and technology demonstration unit of Chinese fruits and vegetables.” By discussing the Honliv Company’s experience and difficulties during the sustainable agriculture transformation process, one can realize the importance of green agriculture initiatives for creating a better life for humans.

The growth in the ecotourism industry has increased emphasis on sustainable practices. Despite the fact that ample research has been conducted on sustainable ecotourism practices, many ecotourism destinations fail to become sustainable. The growth of the ecotourism industry and the global population has called for greener practices to be incorporated in developing ecotourism destinations. Waterwheel, located in the Limpopo province of South Africa, is faced with this green development challenge and serves as a case study (located at the end of the chapter) for this chapter.

This chapter gives a brief overview of the green principles associated with developing ecotourism destinations. Green ecotourism destination planning is explained within the context of the tourists’ experience to highlight aspects necessary for sustainable ecotourism destination development.

Even though the green market is still in its infancy, tourists are increasingly demanding green accommodation. A green, sustainable ecotourism destination can only be developed if green principles are incorporated from the input phase. The input phase (e.g., building materials and infrastructure systems for water and energy) determines the output phase (e.g., operational materials, activities, suppliers, activities, and marketing) and, subsequently, the level of sustainability. It is therefore crucial to plan for these aspects and the level to which the destination aims to adhere to these aspects, as they are costly.

Even though research on the green economy is not a new phenomenon it has only recently trickled down to ecotourism development. This explains the lack of research currently experienced in the literature of ecotourism and a gap that should be addressed urgently. Although this chapter only briefly discusses green ecotourism development, the aspects highlighted in the chapter provides other researchers with research opportunities to pursue in an effort to bridge the gap.

A country image is a generic construct created by a wide range of factors as representative products, national characteristics, economic and political backgrounds, history and traditions. In times when environmental protection and performance have become two of the world’s most important priorities, such a general view of a particular country should include green dimensions as well. Literature review suggests a lack of literature on the coexistence of country image and green orientation. The goal of the chapter is to bridge the gap in the research literature about the green image of a country and to explore the level of awareness of its existence among tourists. Therefore, after secondary (desk) research, primary (field) research in two stages was conducted. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in both stages. Firstly, group interviews were conducted among tourists in the capital of Croatia. Then, a survey was carried out with 250 tourists who shared their perception of the environmental practices in Croatia. The research results indicate that Croatia has a green image mostly because of its unspoiled nature and natural food assortment. However, the implementation of environmentally responsible activities is lacking, especially those related to waste and energy management, as well as fundamental knowledge and experience of Croatian citizens on how ecological awareness contributes to higher quality of life.

This research examines the lodging experience in the context of environmentally friendly hotels by discovering the underlying guest segments. A mixed-method approach is deployed, which first reveals three lodging experience dimensions entailing, functionality, hedonism and social responsibility via in-depth interviews. Subsequently, a questionnaire survey is conducted which gathers responses from 326 guests staying at seven certified green hotels. A cluster analysis based on green lodging experiences is performed that evokes three distinct guest segments labeled as (1) spontaneous guests, (2) active guests, and (3) devoted guests. The study notes that social responsibility is the most important lodging experience across the three resultant segments. The study also finds about 31% of respondents tend not to pay much attention to green lodging operations. It leads to a suggestion that the implementation of green operations may be accomplished in a way not notably compromising certain service expectations by those not profusely aspiring of the notion of green operations. Even though meeting the needs of core customers is a vital task.

The purpose of this paper is to re-evaluate the sustainable attitude-behavior gap by reconsidering the cognitive-rational aspects of consumer purchase behavior. We aim to show how companies can benefit from focusing on hedonic aspects of consumption in their marketing of sustainable products. We claim that consumer culture research needs to examine the link between hedonic, aesthetic, and cognitive-rational aspects of sustainable consumption.

We use the electric vehicle marketing strategy in the United States as an example of an approach to bridge the attitude-behavior gap. More specifically, we focus on the car manufacturer Tesla as an example of marketing a sustainable product.

We find that Tesla’s marketing strategy focuses on aesthetics and hedonics-ludic performance. Similarly to other luxury cars, Tesla markets itself with a full compliment of consumer benefits. Compared to economical electric vehicles, sustainability is not the primary focus of Tesla’s marketing communication strategy.

Sustainable consumption theory benefits from examining the interlinking of hedonic, aesthetic and cognitive-rational aspects product purchasing and use. Future research in the development of sustainable consumption theory in additional complex product categories is needed.

Greater regard for consumer experience in sustainable consumption offers the potential for additional strategies to bridge the attitude-behavior gap and marketing of sustainable goods.

We move beyond the attitude-behavior gap by not only focusing on expressed attitudes of sustainability, but also focusing on the hedonic aspects at play in sustainable consumption.

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are expected to be more creative and innovative to survive in the business competition and to make their businesses environmentally friendly, to develop global supply chain strategies, and to make innovations in products and business processes to become indispensable. This study discusses the effect of green supply chain integration (GSCI) and environmental uncertainty on performance through the moderation of green innovation. Structural equation modeling and maximum likelihood estimation were used to analyze a sample of 130 SMEs in East Java, Indonesia. The result shows that GSCI and environmental uncertainty significantly affect performance, and green innovation significantly moderates the effect. This research found that SME’s performance is influenced by GSCI concept and green innovation application as well as SME’s understanding about recent and future environmental uncertainties; this fits the market demand.

Growing environmental challenge awareness among consumers is today's business reality that pushes for sustainable product development. Governments, industries, and consumers' attention are significantly moved from traditional products to eco-friendly product development. Green product development is the future for manufacturing businesses' survival in most markets. Green product development is an emerging phenomenon and, unfortunately, lacks theoretical and empirical research regarding effective organizational policies and practices for green product development. This study aims at filling research gaps towards green product development by highlighting green employee aspects influenced by leadership for sustainable business growth. The study hypothesized relations between the green effect of transformational leadership on green product development as an outcome through green behaviour, green climate, and green innovative creativity. Data was collected from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) of Karachi through a self-administered survey questionnaire. Results revealed significant support for hypothesized relations through the partial least square statistical tool. This study contributes theoretical and empirical advancement in past literature wherein leadership style influences employee behaviour that leads to predict product development from an environmental perspective. Study inferences suggest for visionary green leadership style for sustainable business growth. Limitations of this study regarding other variable inclusiveness, sampling, and geography are potential extensions for further scholarly investigation.