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This research aims to compare consumer responses to pro-environmental communication and appeals to recycle packaging when these messages come from a high-familiarity versus a low-familiarity brand.

Two online between-subjects experimental studies evaluate consumer perceptions and the willingness to comply with recycling appeals in response to pro-environmental communications from a high-familiarity versus a low-familiarity brand. To test the hypotheses, the studies examine the moderating role of sustainability habits and the mediating role of shared environmental responsibility.

Findings show that communicating a brand’s adoption of sustainable packaging is more salient to consumers when the appeal comes from a low-familiarity rather than a high-familiarity brand, especially when sustainability habits are weaker. The mediating role of shared environmental responsibility partly explains consumers’ commitment to act pro-environmentally.

Sustainability officials and policymakers should consider the impact of pro-environmental interventions that encourage collective recycling between brands and consumers. Practitioners are encouraged to examine revised waste management schemes such as extended producer responsibility programs to elicit the collaboration of consumers in initiatives that boost recycling and stimulate pro-environmental behaviors.

Using the diagnosticity–accessibility framework and habit theory, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is among the first to empirically examine the role of sustainability habits in consumer responses to pro-environmental brand communications. It also highlights consumers’ willingness to comply with brands’ take-back programs in a shared effort to reduce plastic waste and encourage a circular economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why firms governed by the same environmental management standards within an industry exhibit contrasting responses, with some adhering to the letter and others achieving the spirit behind the standards.

Using Arena et al. (2010) as an analytical schema to examine the institutional dynamics behind such contrasting responses, the paper analyses archival and interview data relating to firm strategy, control technology and human expertise in two contrasting Australian forestry firms.

The embedding and decoupling of environmental standards with a firm’s environmental management practices is influenced, first, by the extent to which founder directors and senior management integrate environmental responsibility with the underlying business motives and, second, by the use of organisational beliefs and values systems to institutionalise the integrated strategic rationality throughout the firm. Finally, informed by the institutionalised strategic rationality, the participation and expertise of actors across the organisational hierarchy determine the level to which the design and execution of the eco-control technologies move beyond merely monitoring compliance, and act to facilitate continuous improvement, knowledge integration and organisational learning at the operational level.

This paper responds to institutional theorists’ call for a holistic explanation that considers the interactions among several intra-organisational factors to explain the dynamics behind why some firms decouple while others do not, even though the firms exist in the same social and regulatory context.

In this final chapter, we explore the ever-evolving 21st century landscape where ethics drive community development toward resilience and progress. Drawing inspiration from the subheadings mapping our journey, we traverse international case studies spanning Canada, Brazil, Sweden, Kenya, China, Australia, Antarctica, and India. Through these global insights, we uncover the impacts of dynamic forces on communities worldwide, navigating ethical dilemmas and opportunities. We present strategies tailored to diverse continent-specific needs, explore inclusive governance models, and highlight the transformative power of ethical engagement. This journey underscores the vital role of resilience and concludes with a global call to embrace ethical approaches for inclusive community development and a sustainable future.

This study aims to examine how students in business colleges across three countries, the United States, India and China, interpret environmental sustainability. This study also explores where students from different cultures believe responsibility lies in caring for the environment and how these beliefs represent their cultural and millennial values. The purpose of this study, then, is to investigate millennial business students’ perspectives toward the environment across the three countries holding the largest ecological footprint.

College of business students from the United States, India and China were surveyed. Student responses regarding environmental sustainability were compared to values of the millennial generation and placement of responsibility compared to national culture dimensions.

An average of 66.3 per cent of the coded responses reflect the optimism of the generation. Concern for future generations was a frequent theme. Most responses assigned responsibility for environmental sustainability to “all”. Results support the work of Husted (2005) and Park et al. (2007) as well as the expectations of the millennial generation’s values related to environmental sustainability.

The authors connect national cultural research to environmental sustainability. This study explores where students from different cultures believe responsibility lies in caring for the environment and how these beliefs represent their cultural and millennial values. National cultural combined with millennial opinion is an important area of research for understanding the assignment of responsibility related to environmental sustainability.

The ISO 14001 environmental management system (EMS) standard has been designed to help organizations in the creation of structured mechanisms for continuous improvement in environmental performance. This paper evaluates how ISO 14001 EMS and EMS‐like standards aid organizations in operating continuous source reduction programs by exploring some critical elements for program success. The ISO 14001 standard helps organizations define important EMS elements for continuous source reduction. However, adopting these elements may necessitate cultural changes, the core elements of which are embodied by TQM principles. The cultural changes support complex operational activities aimed at source reduction. Three case study firms are used to evaluate these critical EMS elements. Each firm showed substantially idiosyncratic situations attributable to each organization’s size, history, corporate culture, and technology. Despite the differences, however, the cases highlighted one critical point: employee empowerment, their willingness to make suggestions for improvement, and management’s effort to create employee participation in decision making are critical elements in managing continuous source reduction programs. These initial empirical observations provide some insight into how this cultural change may occur.

Multinational companies whose importance has increased or improved depending on global capitalisation and travelling around the world without knowing borders have activities in developing countries due to suitable conditions (e.g. cheap workers costs, flexible legal arrangements). In this study, the precautions set forth to prevent environmental troubles, to obliterate or to minimise it, are the activities undertaken by the multinational companies which are considered. In the study, Turkey as a case country in which this subject was studied. Globalisation is the last step of economical sovereignty set up by means of multinational companies all over the world by capitalism which affects our age deeply. Unlimited capital stocks of capitalism and its economical development aim “whatever the result is” fastens the problems internationally as a result of not recognizing the social developments and justice, inequality, poverty and unsocializing people in developing countries. As a result of this, we're having environmental problems, the speed of nature's being consumed has been increased and there have been troubles almost every field of the social lives. However there is no one else who accepts the responsibilities of cost and social policies in the global economies in which international capital and global corporations decide on the rules; there is also no one else who accepts the responsibilities of environmental pollution and natural possessions' destruction as the result of the activities of international capital and global companies. The reason for this is that it is assumed that the government must take the responsibility “to protect and to development the environment”. According to this idea, protecting and developing the environment has been supplying public use and public service. Thus public service is the duty of the state. Environmental rights subject, known as third generation rights or corporation rights, is to protect the environment and to development it. People who have the environmental rights are those actors who will make use of these rights and who will have the responsibilities of these rights. The people who will make use of these rights and who will have the responsibilities are generally the same actors. These are not only the people but also public and special institutions including communities; states and public; and the next generation. In this case, all the right owners who have the rights to live in a healthy and well balanced environment are obliged to protect and to development the environment at the same time, including the multinational companies. Every economic activity has an effect on the environment. Multinational companies have activities in the fields like gold mining, petrol, chemicals and food industry which have high potential effects on the environment in developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Nigeria. On this point the question why multinational companies choose these countries should be answered. The answer doesn't only help to explain the issue's political sides but also it could show that the most dirtying foreign capital activities take place in developing countries. Why multinational companies have chosen these developing countries was studied under two titles. (1) Dirtying industries are choosing the countries which don't have severe legal arrangements, (2) The public opinion in developing countries is unconscious of the harms that economical activities give to the environment. If the first finding hadn't been true, the activities in most polluting sectors wouldn't have been directed to the countries where environmental laws are flexible/flexibly practised. Besides, the public opinion in these low educational level countries doesn't have enough knowledge about the environmental problems and importance of environment. This information also gives assurance to the multinational companies that they don't face with the opposing activities of the public there. Nevertheless, foreign capital is wanted by these countries to supply new technologies, to supply the political and economical support of the countries which export development and capital, to open their economy to other countries and to protect the environment of the country. But, in practice, these countries which are under pressure to pay their debts don't pay attention to the ecological defects of the activities let the multinational companies to settle in the country, import the wastes which supply currency entrance, to be stored in the national borders and to be reused without evaluation. Foreign capital entrance in gold mining fields is a small example about being served and defended as a gold opportunity to pay Turkey's foreign debts. As a result, multinational companies are unsuccessful in sharing environmental responsibilities in the developing countries. Multinational companies have been making use of the opportunities that the environment presents but they don't do their duties to environmental rights. The efforts by multinational companies have been improving as prevention of increasing the environmental standards. Related to this, in the countries mentioned and also in Turkey, where economical activity fields like ecological sensitivity isn't assured enough by law and isn't protected wholly is a kind of great danger for Turkey.

This article explores the different approaches taken to environmental regulation of the small firm in the UK and The Netherlands and the relationship of such regulation with the attitudes of small business owner‐managers. Using evidence from 40 interviews with businesses in both countries, we contrast the engagement and orientation of these enterprises with the business‐environment agenda. In both countries, government rhetoric stresses the harmony between business and environmental objectives: on the ground, attitudes of owner‐managers stress that these goals are far from complementary. In the UK, owner‐managers feel that environmental issues are a legitimate area of concern, but government should take the lead in addressing business‐environmental issues. Here, businesses are reacting to a policy context where environmental issues are seen as either a cost on the business, or presented as having simplistic win‐win outcomes. Businesses themselves, however, perceive it very much as an additional burden. In The Netherlands, SMEs have been targeted by the State by joint regulation through legislation, licensing and voluntary initiatives. This results in generally higher levels of environmental care. Small firms in The Netherlands appear to have accepted the importance of this and their shared responsibility for environmental care. In view of the shifting business‐environment policy debate in the UK, it is unlikely that the current reliance on voluntary initiatives and economic incentives will bear fruit. Different approaches may need, therefore, to be explored.

This paper aims to identify key sectors in carbon footprint responsibility, an introduced concept depicting CO₂ responsibilities allocated through the supply chain containing sectoral activities and interactions. In detail, various key sectors could be identified according to comparative advantages in trade, sectoral linkage and sectoral synergy within the supply chain.

A semi-closed input–output model is used to make the household income–expenditure relationship endogenous through the supply chain where sectoral CO₂ emissions are calculated, and the production-based responsibility (PR) principle is evaluated. Thus, according to “carbon footprint responsibility”, modified hypothetical extraction method is applied to decompose sectoral CO₂ in terms of comparative advantages in trade, sectoral linkage and synergy. Finally, key sectors are identified via sectoral shares and associated decompositions in carbon footprint responsibility.

Compared to 2005, in 2012, the PR principle failed to track sectoral CO₂ flow, and embodied CO₂ in import and interprovincial export increased, with manufacturing contributing the most; manufacturing should take more carbon responsibilities in the internal linkage, and tertiary sectors in the net forward and backward linkage, with sectors enjoying low carbonization in the mixed linkage; inward net CO₂ flows of manufacturing and service sectors were more complicated than their outward ones in terms of involved sectors and economic drivers; and residential effects on CO₂ emissions of traditional sectors increased, urban effects remained larger than rural ones and manufacturing and tertiary sectors received the largest residential effects.

The value of this paper is as follows: the household income–expenditure relationship got endogenous in intermediate supply and demand, corresponding to the rapid urbanization in megacities; key sectors were observed to change flexibly according to real sectoral activities and interaction; and the evaluation of the PR principle was completed ahead of using a certain CO₂ accounting principle at the city level.

Given the country‐specific characteristics of corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is an increasing interest in studying CSR in developing countries. Such studies play an important role in broadening people's knowledge of CSR under different economic, social and cultural conditions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the CSR reports (CSRRs) of listed companies in the largest emerging market, namely China.

Based on a content analysis of 81 CSRRs (2007) of listed companies in domestic security markets of China (the Shanghai Security Exchanges and Shenzhen Security Exchange), the CSR features of Chinese companies are thoroughly evaluated.

The main findings of the study are as follows. Only 5.05 percent of listed companies published their CSRRs in China, and 4.42 percent of them issued a separate CSRR. Most companies (97.18 percent) use “CSRR” as the name of their stand‐alone CSRRs; 79 percent of companies hold a positive attitude to taking on social responsibilities, while no company holds a negative attitude. Various social issues and stakeholders of companies are addressed in CSRRs. In general, state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) have higher propensity to address most of social issues, which may reflect that SOEs are more politically sensitive than non‐SOEs because most of the social issues are just “political slogans” proposed by the Chinese Government in recent years. However, non‐SOEs have better performance than SOEs in addressing the interests of stakeholders. Meanwhile, industrial firms show higher propensity to address the interests of stakeholders than service firms.

The results of this study indicate that CSR reporting practice is still at an early stage of development in China. Meanwhile, Chinese companies tend to follow the Chinese guidelines in issuing CSRRs rather than adopt international guidelines. In addition, Chinese companies are somewhat politically sensitive in addressing social issues. A major weakness of this study is that the sample only represents the best companies in assuming social responsibilities in China, thus some results cannot be generalized to all Chinese companies.

The paper helps people, especially Westerners, to comprehend CSR in China. To the author's knowledge, this paper is the first of its kind to examine CSR in China.

This paper seeks to provide an in‐depth discussion on the impact of agricultural biotechnology in developing and least developed countries (LDCs) as well as the concomitant biosafety concerns that might have an impact on trade and the environment whilst highlighting the importance of choosing development pathways that are conducive to the specific needs of these nations without endangering the biodiversity and affecting people's health.

The paper adopts a socio‐legal approach by undertaking a content analysis of decided cases, relevant treaties and existing studies conducted in areas related to agricultural biotechnology within the framework of sustainable development imperatives.

The paper suggests that developing countries venturing into agricultural biotechnology need to enrich the technology according to their needs and capabilities in order to be able to weigh the benefits against the risks in the production and import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) specifically via the implementation of the “precautionary principle” and viable “risk assessment” techniques which conform to their existing international law obligations in view of the findings that most of these nations have not formulated adequate legal and institutional frameworks supported with the necessary expertise to regulate, monitor, and ensure safety of agricultural GMOs produced and/or imported by them.

The issues and suggestions in this paper will enable the development process of developing and least developed economies to conform to the tenets of sustainable development and minimize the loss of Earth's biodiversity.

The paper is of practical use to stakeholders and policymakers alike venturing into agricultural biotechnology. It pools the findings of a cross‐section of studies to look at the implications therein and the arising biosafety and trade issues with special reference to developing and LDCs.