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The purpose of this paper is to investigate “best practice” building strategies and sustainability‐oriented techniques and tools used to assess the energy performance of housing developments. The objective is to propose guidelines that can integrate futures thinking into the selection of energy‐related design responses, such as materials, building components and energy systems, from the early project stages.

An interdisciplinary approach is adopted with the inclusion of social, economic and environmental aspects of the energy supply and demand. A multiple case study approach is employed, which focuses on the residential sector of European mixed‐use developments that represent sustainable communities of “best practice”.

The investigation of “best practice” housing developments reveals that the majority of design responses cover mainstream environmental design strategies. Energy efficiency measures are still the “low hanging fruit” towards meeting the sustainability objectives. In addition, established sustainability‐oriented techniques and tools used focus mostly on projections of almost certain facts rather than explorations of a portfolio of plausible futures.

The paper represents a shift away from the short‐term mindset that still dominates design and construction practices. It provides an overview of building strategies and decision‐support techniques and tools for improving and incentivising sustainable energy solutions over the long term.

Understanding the role of corporate strategies in sustainability has become a hot topic for scholarly research. Meanwhile, firms strive to innovate and shape their positive image in the contemporary business arena. Past research has ignored investigating whether and how sustainability-oriented corporate strategies could drive innovation and firm image among external stakeholders. To address the said research gap, this paper examines the path through which sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation improve green corporate image and green innovation capabilities (i.e. green process and product innovation).

This study adopted a quantitative survey-based method. The online survey was adopted to collect data from employees working at the managerial level in the equipment manufacturing sector. The data collected from 343 managers that was complete in all aspects was used for empirical analysis using structural equation modeling. Direct and indirect relations were evaluated.

The findings reveal that sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation drive green innovation and green corporate image. Findings further show that external knowledge adoption underpins these effects of sustainability-oriented corporate strategy and environmental regulation.

The study delivers theoretical and practical understandings of the importance of sustainability-oriented corporate strategies to green corporate image and green innovation capabilities.

Sustainable development is key to firms' competitiveness, survival, growth and profitability, although sustainability emerges as a great challenge. The aim of this study is to analyze the links between organizational creativity (which integrates sustainability orientation), sustainability-oriented innovation and the multidimensionality of firms' sustainability performance.

A total of 417 valid responses from manufacturing SMEs were collected through a questionnaire. PLS-SEM is the statistical technique used in the hypothesis testing.

Organizational creativity (which integrates sustainability orientation) and sustainability-oriented innovation are positively associated with economic sustainability performance, environmental sustainability performance and social sustainability performance; sustainability-oriented innovation has a partial mediation effect on the relationship between organizational creativity and economic, environmental, and social sustainability performance; and organizational creativity (which integrates sustainability orientation) has a positive effect on sustainability-oriented innovation.

Sustainability orientation is integrated into organizational creativity without limiting it, sustainability-oriented innovation encompasses innovation and sustainability in all its breadth without forgetting the innovation process openness, and firm's sustainability performance has a multidimensional approach. Such innovation and creativity contribute – in an interconnected way – to sustainable development, as well as overcoming sustainability challenges and firms' barriers to sustainability. Likewise, the aforementioned creativity must be implemented throughout the company, even beyond its contribution to the innovation process. Thus, the implementation of new ideas, thoughts, perspectives, views, and mental models – fruit of the described creative process – will generate new models and paths in which firms' profitability, growth and survival are related with overcoming environmental and social problems.

Green innovation, digitization and sustainability have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their transformative potential in organizations. This study, grounded in the resource-based view, explores the intricate relationship among green entrepreneurial orientations, sustainability-oriented innovation, and the circular economy, employing green knowledge management as a pivotal mechanism.

The proposed model and hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares (PLS) structural equation modeling (SEM) with a sample of 274 valid questionnaires collected from manufacturing firms in Saudi Arabia.

Results unveil positive relationships between green entrepreneurial orientations and sustainability-oriented innovation, as well as the circular economy, along with a positive mediation of green knowledge management in these relationships. In addition, these relationships exhibit heightened strength with increased levels of digital transformation.

The contributions of this research extend to both theoretical and practical realms, offering valuable insights for startups and traditional businesses as they explore the landscape of green innovation and digitization.

This paper aims to deal with the selection of the sustainability-oriented Green Lean Six Sigma (GLS) project for the manufacturing industry in the complex decision-making environment. Moreover, the study also proposes a GLS implementation framework for improved organizational performance.

GLS project selection has been done based on the six sustainability-oriented criteria formed from 17 sub-criteria (found from the literature and developed by authors). The weights of the criteria have been determined through the entropy method. The projects have been ranked based on the criteria through the advanced decision-making approach: grey relation analysis (GRA). The results of the study were validated using best worst method and sensitivity analysis.

It has been found that the productivity-related criterion is the most significant among other criteria with entropy weight of 0.2721. GRA has been used in this research work to rank the potential GLS projects in a manufacturing industry based on six sustainability criteria, to select a project that exhibits the maximum potential for sustainable improvement. The machine shop has been found as the most significant GLS project with grey relation grade of 0.4742.

The present study facilitates practitioners and industrial managers to implement an inclusive GLS approach for improved sustainability dynamics through effective GLS project selection and implementation framework.

With increased globalized competition in recent times, new projects are being considered as the foundation stone for organizational success. The decision-making becomes quite complex to select an effective project due to the intriguing nature of various criteria, sub-criteria and different aspects of sustainability. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first of its kind that provides ways for the selection of sustainability-oriented GLS projects.

The purpose of this paper is to show the relevance attributed to sustainability management control tools (SMCTs) and their real use. Mainly, this study aims to shed light on the approaches, motivations and difficulties encountered in SMCTs adoption by the most sustainable Italian companies, as well as their effectiveness.

Using a pre-structured qualitative survey method, the authors grasped information about external and internal dimensions of sustainability management in light of institutional and resource-based view theories. Data are elaborated with two methods: a regime analysis to assess the relevance of SMCTs and a descriptive analysis to investigate the “aim”, “which” and “how” of the SMCTs' use by companies listed in sustainability indices.

Informal SMCTs prevailed over formal ones. There is a discrepancy between attention paid to some tools praised in the literature and their knowledge and use. In addition, a significant gap exists between what is desired and what is achieved in terms of effectiveness. Further, although sustainability management is primarily oriented towards the external perspective, SMCTs can be key to improving both the disclosure and management of sustainability.

The criteria for the selection of the sample resulted in a small number of analysed companies, which allowed us to gain insight into what happens inside the listed Italian companies in the most important sustainability indices. These companies have sustainability-oriented management, which also probably safeguards their advantage linked to inclusion in these indices.

This paper provides food for thought for companies engaged in non-financial disclosure and for those who aim to implement SMCTs. It shows the need to reinforce formal sustainability control tools, also through dissemination of major knowledge about the implementation of these tools, and to encourage sponsorship from top levels of management.

Compared with SMCT research using a theoretical or case study approach, this study uniquely undertakes extensive research on the perceived effectiveness of SMCTs in achieving sustainability goals and the difficulties in implementing them, thereby highlighting a discrepancy between some tools emphasised in the literature and those infrequently used in sustainability-oriented companies.

Innovation and sustainability are two key factors for retailers seeking a competitive advantage. However, the way in which the joint effect of both of these variables impacts consumer satisfaction is still unknown. To address this gap, based on the concept of sustainability-oriented service innovation (SOSI), the authors introduce a new construct named sustainability-oriented commerce innovation (SOCI) in the context of the retail sector.

The relationships between the variables defined in this research were examined using a structural equations model for 510 customers of grocery retail establishments.

The authors find support for a direct positive impact of SOCI on customer satisfaction and an indirect impact through store equity. These chained effects are modified according to the client participation in the development of sustainable and innovative initiatives.

This research analyses the joint effect of innovation and sustainability in the retail context by introducing a new concept – SOCI – and a scale for its measurement whose psychometric properties are validated.

This study aims to bring together the available scattered knowledge about teaching and learning in Living Labs within higher education, and to explore their potential for supporting students’ sustainability-oriented transformative learning.

A literature review was conducted, applying a realist approach. A sample of 35 articles was analyzed qualitatively, mapping the data according to the realist constructs “context,” “intervention,” “mechanism” and “outcome” and using the constant comparison method for data analysis.

This study identified multiple characteristics of teaching and learning in sustainability-oriented Living Labs, namely, two socio-physical teaching and learning contexts, two pedagogical approaches as interventions therein, four learning processes as (potential) mechanisms and six sustainability-related learning outcomes. Two main challenges were also identified.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that brings together the scattered results from previous studies into a comprehensive description of characteristics and challenges of teaching and learning in Living Labs as sustainability-oriented learning spaces in higher education. The findings can support educators in making scientifically grounded informed choices for teaching and learning in Living Labs and inform future empirical studies to examine when, how and why certain characteristics of teaching and learning in Living Labs, as identified in this study, can support sustainability-oriented transformative learning in higher education.

The purpose of this empirical study is to enable a better understanding of the construct sustainability-oriented entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) and thereby promote sustainable entrepreneurship. It aims to examine the significance of work values (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards and job security) as antecedents of SEI and to test the mediating effect of three constructs derived from the theory of planned behaviour – attitude towards sustainability, perceived entrepreneurial desirability and perceived entrepreneurial feasibility on the relationships between work values and SEI.

Confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory factor analysis were performed using analysis of moment structures v27 and statistical package for social science v28 on data obtained from the survey of young individuals of India. The respondents were students enrolled in higher education programmes.

All the identified antecedents (extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, job security and theory of planned behaviour constructs) were found to be statistically significant. The partial mediating effect of the theory of planned behaviour constructs was also reported.

This empirical work leads to the theoretical advancement of the emerging construct, SEI, by presenting evidence of the significant individual-level antecedents of the construct. The results lead to recommendations for policymakers and educators to design strategies to strengthen SEI, thereby expanding the adoption of sustainable entrepreneurship.

This chapter introduces the volume’s theme by describing the challenges of sustainability in the agri-food industry and the critical role of agri-food supply chains. Following a description of traditional and sustainable supply chain management practices, we discuss the likely characteristics of sustainability-oriented innovations and how organizations pursuing higher levels of economic, social, and environmental performance will need to adapt their capabilities.

Drawing on the emerging concepts and practices from sustainable supply chain management as well as traditional and emerging concepts from innovation, we develop general propositions and expectations about how organizations might address sustainable effectiveness in their supply chains. The importance of the agri-food industry to all three pillars of sustainable effectiveness and predictions about the inability to feed future populations gives the discussion a certain urgency.

Sustainability-oriented innovations in the agri-food supply chain are different from traditional innovations. We develop propositions regarding the driving motivations, their nature and scope (i.e., more radical and systemic than incremental and focused), and the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach. The 10 cases presented in the volume are summarized.