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This study contributes to the literature on eco-innovation (EI) and the circular economy (CE) by providing insights into the factors of external knowledge absorption that facilitate the adoption of a subset of EIss called proactive-EIs. Proactive-EIs involve collaborations among multiple stakeholders, the use of technical knowledge and a greater level of investment than other innovations. In this study, the environmental actions taken by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in resource-intensive sectors in the European Union (EU) were observed, and elements related to the national context were compared.

The national innovation system (NIS) perspective was adopted using a multilevel framework to assess the determinants of proactive-EIs among SMEs in the EU. The framework involves three levels: micro- (environmental awareness), meso- (external collaboration and intra-industry agglomeration) and macro- (economic complexity, trade openness and government research and development [R&D]). The survey data of 6,188 SMEs in resource-intensive sectors were analysed using a binary logistic regression.

The results showed that public awareness, economic complexity and public sector R&D positively influenced SMEs' adoption of proactive-EIs, whereas external collaboration and sectoral agglomeration negatively influenced adoption.

Among the existing empirical studies on EI, areas related to external knowledge-based innovations and systematic assessments of heterogeneity among EU member states remain underexplored. This study contributed to the literature by assessing the conditions surrounding external knowledge absorption. The findings contribute to the green entrepreneurship literature in the context of developed economies and offer insights for managers and policymakers seeking to promote EIs.

This study aims to explore the effect of eco-labels on green product purchase intention among consumers of electrical/electronic products in an emerging market context.

This study adopted an extended theory of planned behaviour to assess the effects of eco-labels. To measure the key constructs, scales pertaining to the relevant literature were used to design a structured questionnaire for empirical examination. A final data set of 680 consumers was analysed using structured equation modelling.

The results indicate that eco-labels significantly impact perceived behavioural control, attitude, subjective norms and consumers’ willingness to pay higher prices for environmentally friendly green products.

The findings not only complement research on green consumerism but also serve as an important direction for socially responsible marketers who aim to play an important role in propagating pro-social consumption among emerging cohorts of consumers. The importance of eco-labelling as an effective marketing tool is highlighted, with valuable insights for future research and practices pertaining to emerging consumer markets.

This study fills a void in contemporary research by examining consumers of electrical/electronic products that typically involve long-term usage, with potentially greater environmental footprints.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the upward trend of organic food (OF) consumption is no longer restrained to western markets but has also extended to emerging markets in different parts of the world. Still, extent post-pandemic literature has devoted little attention to the factors shaping consumers' intent to purchase organic food in developing markets. The current research empirically investigates the antecedents of consumers' attitude and intent to purchase organic food in an emerging market context (i.e. Morocco). This research also explores the differences between OF consumers' manifest attitudes prior to and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

To achieve the study's objectives, data were collected from 1,060 Moroccan respondents using online self-administered questionnaires in two different eras: prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with a total of 441 valid responses and following the pandemic with 619 valid responses. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to validate the data, and a partial least squares (PLS) estimation was used to test the hypotheses.

First, attitude towards OF has a significant impact on consumers' purchase intention; at the same time, it is influenced by subjective norms, organic labeling, perceived behavioral control, health consciousness, and environmental concern. This study's findings also suggest subjective norms, organic labeling, perceived behavioral control, health consciousness, environmental concern, age, and income as the key determinants of consumers' intention to purchase OF. Second, the IPMA analysis suggests that while health consciousness, organic labeling and perceived behavioral control are the most important constructs influencing attitude towards OF, consumers' purchase intention is mostly influenced by health consciousness, attitude towards OF and age. Finally, the PLS-Multigroup Analysis conveyed few discrepancies in the results when comparing the two eras (i.e. subjective norms and age had more significant impacts on consumers' purchase intent following the COVID-19 pandemic).

This study provides organic food retailers and practitioners with a deeper understanding of the key aspects shaping consumers' intent to purchase organic products in emerging markets. The comparative analysis will also provide important insights on how to shape consumers' attitudes and purchase intentions in a new-normal marked by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study's findings contribute to the growing literature on consumers' behavior in the organic food industry, particularly in developing countries where research is still narrow. This study's study is the first of its kind to compare consumers' intention to purchase organic food before and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

This chapter delineates the conditions, challenges and opportunities for the sustainability of small entrepreneurial firms involved in local food tourism. It raises awareness on how these businesses can enhance their competitiveness in this market. It puts forward an analytical framework that is based on the economic, social, environmental and cultural sustainability of small local food tourism entrepreneurs in Swedish, Italian and Spanish contexts. This research implies that the financial sustainability of these small enterprises is contributing to local economic growth and employment in their country. From the social sustainability aspect these tourism businesses are intrinsically linked to local communities. Their responsible practices are meant to safeguard the environmental sustainability as well as the preservation of their local culture and heritage. At the same time, they enable them to add value to their destination’s cultural sustainability.

The objectives of this paper are twofold. First, it aims to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the activities and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) government suppliers involved in government green procurement (GGP). Second, it examines the differences in the impact of COVID-19 between small and medium-sized groups.

The study used a questionnaire survey that was distributed to SMEs listed in the MyHIJAU directory that supply green goods and services to the government. Of the total 394 sample respondents, 126 usable questionnaires were received, representing a usable response rate of 31.98%. Descriptive analysis of mean score, standard deviation and mean score ranking was used to analyse the overall results. A t-test analysis was carried out to examine the differences between the small and medium-sized groups of companies.

The study discovers that the SME government suppliers involved in GGP were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The top ranked impacts are that “the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened health and safety practices among the employees”, “the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced company’s turnover”, “the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the company to implement a cost reduction strategy”, “the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on the company’s ability to deliver work, supplies or services to the government” and “the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the company to incur higher production costs for green products or services provided”. However, there is no significant difference between the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the small and medium-sized group of enterprises.

The present study is among the fewer studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular focus on SME government suppliers involved in GGP.

As a measure against plastic waste, Coca-Cola and Evian have begun introducing label-free plastic bottles. Food labels have long been recognized as an important marketing tool, but there is a lack of research on label-free products. To address this gap, this study examined the influence of label-free design on product attractiveness in the Japanese green tea market.

If existing products are used in an experiment, respondents would be subject to brand image bias. Hence, by mechanically combining the main design elements (cap shape, bottle style, decoration line, logo and label) with an orthogonal array, the conditions for bottles with and without labels are completely aligned. The authors conducted an online survey and applied the chi-square test to the attractiveness of 18 designs presented in random order.

Label-free designs were more attractive to consumers than labeled designs. The effect was higher among female, middle-aged and older adults; those with higher annual income and low-frequency purchasers.

Practitioners should adopt a label-free design that can satisfy both environmental considerations and customer value. It would be a formidable challenge to change the longstanding emphasis placed on label design, but this study demonstrates the value of doing so.

This is the first study in the package design literature on the advantages of label-free plastic bottles. The authors also applied an orthogonal array used for many years to optimize objective numerical values in marketing research.

The objectives of this study are twofold. Firstly, this study aims to examine the challenges of green public procurement (GPP) involvement among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) government suppliers. Secondly, it investigates the differences in the perceived challenges between the small- and medium-sized groups of companies.

The study draws on the quantitative method. The questionnaire was distributed to SMEs that supply green goods or services to the government and which are listed in the MyHijau directory. Using convenience sampling, a total of 394 questionnaires were distributed and 126 usable questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 31.98%. A descriptive analysis of the mean score, standard deviation and mean score ranking was used to analyse the overall results. The t-test analysis was carried out to examine the differences between the small- and medium-sized groups of companies.

All five categories of the barriers, i.e. financial, legal, people, knowledge and organizational challenges, are perceived as the important challenges for SMEs’ involvement in GPP. Of the five categories, “having lack of knowledgeable staff on GPP” under the category of “people” challenge is ranked as the most major barrier. In relation to the differences between the two groups of enterprises (small- and medium-sized), medium enterprises are more affected by two items under the “organization” challenge, i.e. “The company has not targeted suppliers that promote environmentally-friendly products/services” and “The company has not established a clear objective on purchase of green products and services”, as compared to the small-sized enterprises through their GPP involvement.

By understanding the difficulties faced by SMEs in engaging with GPP, various practical measures can be formulated to support the SME businesses in mitigating the challenges faced for their involvement with GPP, which subsequently will lead to the country’s target to reach the sustainable development goals.

This study extends empirical evidence on barriers or challenges that may hinder the involvement in government green procurement, with a specific focus on SME government suppliers.

Green Public Procurement (GPP) has recently gained attention in the academic and policy arenas since climate change has uncovered the need to be addressed by both private companies and public entities. Because of this growing interest this study aims to explore the most influential journals, publishers, categories, topics and therecent trends and future research lines in GPP.

Based on the Web of Science database, 1,008 articles from 1990 to November 2023 devoted to GPP are analysed by using Bibliometrix, an R-tool to perform bibliometric analysis.

This study introduces the following findings. The most influential journals by far are Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability, differing in that the latter is open access (OA) while the former publishes through traditional subscription (TS). This result also occurs regarding the main publishers (Elsevier and MDPI).

GPP is a political commitment that contributes to improving the efficiency of the economies and that has aroused the interest of the scientific community. The paper can provide important insights for GPPs formulation in the areas of procurements and literacy.

The paper leads a debate on the opportunities or threats that the OA journals present for the dissemination of scientific knowledge of GPP, compared to TS publications in the same field.

This chapter aims to list the literature that document the role of hospitality industry achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and to summarize those contributions, related to the literature. Extensive literature review was also conducted to explore a critical analysis of sustainable digitalization of the hospitality industry.

The article has undertaken a systematic literature review of all the significant research area of almost last two decades. Keyword searches were performed in Google Scholar search engine, where timeframe of “2001–2023” was used to filter the desired article. Total 141 research articles were primarily identified after the initial search. After screening the articles for relevance or duplicates, finally 107 articles were considered for this study.

This study figures out those environment-related SDGs which is considered essential for the hospitality industry. This study found the importance of adopting digitalization in hospitality sector to build inclusive environment and providing seamless experience to customers while focusing on both positive and negative aspects associated with digital transformation.

Hospitality industry of numerous countries around the world are now exploring by implementing SDGs and Digitalization in their business practices. This study will provide insight to policymakers as development and usage of digital technologies and implementing SDGs in their practices are crucial for the sustainable transformation of hospitality industry. Sustainable transformation of hospitality sector not only improves services and helps us to make wiser choices when planning for a trip but also positively impact both physical and psychological well-being.

The smart city paradigm has evolved from a perspective focused on technological infrastructures to an approach in which the effects of the technological apparatus improve the quality of life of people, urban resilience, urban sustainability, and health, by introducing the concept of smart and sustainable city 3.0. In this chapter, the authors evaluate mobility as a key aspect of improving the environmental, social, and economic well-being of communities under the central concept of smart and sustainable city 3.0. To this end, the authors underline the link between mobility, the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMP), and environmental health. Then, the authors outline (i) the mobility requirements to be met from a smart perspective on environmental health and how (ii) the SUMPs can be considered as the basic tool for connecting smartness with mobility and environmental health. Finally, the results obtained will be discussed, and future directions of this research will be illustrated.