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The purpose of the research is to investigate whether corporate social responsibility awareness (pCSR), environmental concerns (EC) and consumer environmental knowledge (CK) will have an impact on sustainable purchase intention (SPI). Furthermore, this paper also contributes to surveying the mediating impact of consumer attitudes (CAs) between intention and the three factors mentioned above.

SmartPLS (version 4.0) structural equation modeling (SEM) and quantitative methods were used to analyze 457 responses from consumers. The survey sample consisted of individuals between the ages of 18 and 34, with a male-to-female ratio of 70 to 30. The study aims to examine and put into practice new directions for manufacturing firms in the fields of fashion, food and consumer products. At the same time, provide more convincing evidence about the use of these fields in the research.

The study showed a favorable link between pCSR, EC, CK and SPI through the proposed hypotheses. The research additionally showed that CAs mediate between the aforementioned variables.

The important and distinctive results of this study encourage both consumers and enterprises to make changes in their perceptions of society. Consumers should gradually change their daily lifestyle by consuming more sustainable products. As a result, this outcome will provide the impetus for manufacturing businesses to alter their operational procedures in order to support the shift from the production of products to more friendly processes, with the help of all levels of management within the business.

This chapter explores two business and innovation strategies to increase sustainability in a small-medium enterprise. The two strategies, one addressing the improved sustainability of an existing product line and the other addressing the development and implementation of a new product line, employ different supply chain sustainable practices and utilize different dynamic capabilities.

The chapter describes how sustainable supply chain management practices, sustainable new product development processes, and theories of dynamic capabilities interact to support a sustainable and differentiated strategy in the Alcass organization.

The models of sustainable supply chain management and sustainable new product development are applied to “more sustainable” products and “new sustainable” products, by raising different relevant practices as well as different supporting dynamic capabilities.

As emphasized in the previous chapter, sustainability marketing entails activities that include all levels of management in small and medium enterprises; that is, strategic, operational and tactical. The role of marketing activities of a sustainable nature involves building customer satisfaction and generating profit for an enterprise, while simultaneously taking into consideration the impact of such activities on society and environment as a whole. Combining all those areas poses a serious challenge to contemporary SMEs. Nevertheless, an effective use of sustainability marketing principles enables companies to achieve the above-specified tasks and gain a strong position in the market over the long term. The nature of the relationship established with various market entities ensures that strong position, because the use of sustainability marketing is equivalent to adopting a relationship-oriented attitude.

Fulfilling the tasks of sustainability marketing requires the employment of tools from the sustainability marketing mix, which comprises the following: sustainability in product, price, distribution, promotion and personnel. The adoption of sustainable development principles by SME marketing departments does not fundamentally change the basic properties of the tools in the mix, that is their complementarity and the resultant synergy effect, but it expands the scope of their impact on the society and environment. This chapter presents a discussion on the nature and specificity of individual tools in the sustainability marketing mix.

This paper reviews recent developments in marketing-related sustainable business practices (SBP) that macromarketing scholars have researched and debated for four decades. Such SBPs should be regarded as positive steps toward a future where business does more good than harm in society.

Using the approach of a literature review, this paper highlights the actions of entrepreneurs and firms to implement SBPs resulting from analysis of the interplay between markets, marketing and society. Such analysis is in the tradition of macromarketing scholarship.

The study identifies important developments about an important shift toward adopting SBPs among many firms, as well as among consumers − especially, in developed countries of the world.

The study suggests that taking a macromarketing view offers scholars a broad lens on current complex marketplace phenomena that will prove effective in better understanding sustainability issues.

The results of the study underline the value of macromarketing scholarship through the last four decades. By being daring enough to consider other stakeholders other than marketers and owners of firms, macromarketers have provided scholars a more holistic understanding of business’ role in society.

Today, enlightened practitioners who utilize knowledge from macromarketing scholarship can gain a competitive advantage as they navigate markets increasingly influenced by a wider set of stakeholders. Such influential stakeholders include partner firms, employees, society and local communities, NGOs, media, government, as well as the environment and future generations. Scholars can gain perspective on the phenomena they investigate with such a macromarketing lens.

Scarcity of resources, ecological imbalance, global warming, rising energy prices and the ever-changing need for variety have attracted the government and manufacturers for sustainable development of the industries. The integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile manufacturing system (ISGLSAMS) provides a solid platform for meeting both the customers’ variety needs and business sustainability requirements. Many organizations opted for ISGLSAMS, but still due to various barriers organizations are not able to fully implement ISGLSAMS. The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers to the ISGLSAMS, so that a more sustainable industrial manufacturing system and industrial symbiosis can be developed.

A literature review, from the Web of Science and Google Scholar database, has been carried out to identify the various barriers to the implementation of ISGLSAMS in the entire value chain. A total of 168 research papers have been reviewed for identifying the ISGLSAMS barriers.

This paper elaborates the concept of the ISGLSAMS, its attributes and various barriers and contributes to a better understanding and successful implementation of ISGLSAMS to meet business’ sustainability and market performance goals in the entire value chain. The paper also projects the future research framework and directions for the ISGLSAMS, integrated sustainable-green-lean-six sigma-agile (ISGLSA) product and ISGLSA supply and value chain.

The study contributes to a better understanding of ISGLSAMS’ barriers. The government, stakeholders and policymakers may plan the policy, road map and strategies to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers. In-depth knowledge of subclauses of ISGLSAMS’ barriers will help the practitioners to overcome the ISGLSAMS’ barriers strategically. By overcoming the ISGLSAMS barriers, a more sustainable 7 Rs based market focused manufacturing system can be designed. This will also increase the opportunities to enhance the industrial ecology, industrial symbiosis and better recovery of the product, process and supply chain residual value. This will reduce the waste to the ecosystem.

This work has been carried out in search of a more sustainable manufacturing system, i.e. ISGLSAMS (which is 7 Rs based, i.e. 6 Rs of sustainability with 7th R, reconfiguration) to meet the customer variety needs along with sustainability in the ever-changing customer market. This study adds value to the practitioners to identify and prioritize the ISGLSAMS’ industry-specific barriers and design the solution for the more sustainable development of (1) industries, (2) the industrial symbiosis system and (3) the ISGLSA product, process, system and supply value chain with minimum resource consumption and environmental impact. The research also contributes to the (a) ISGLSAMS (b) ISGLSA supply chain (c) reconfigurable, sustainable and modular products and (d) redesign, recovery and refurbishing of the product to increase the product life cycle.

The purpose of this paper is to develop an effective approach to decide design details using benchmarking to capture the existing practice in sustainable design.

This paper reports a systematic method for sustainable product design. The method uses benchmarks as references searching for design details to achieve sustainable solutions. Quality function deployment is used to guide the search process for competitive products using benchmarking to meet quantitative targets of product and to increase knowledge for sustainable design.

The proposed method can meet both functional and sustainable requirements of product design. 18.55 percent reduction in carbon equivalent emissions is achieved compared to benchmarks in wheelchair design. The research reveals that when weight, material and number of components used in product decrease, environmental footprints and cost of the product improve.

The research improves the existing method of sustainable product design. Both sustainable requirements and functional demands of product are identified from qualitative criteria to quantitative metrics using benchmarking and the life cycle assessment.

The earth is under massive stress due to current level of consumption which has crossed the sustaining capacity of our planet. Thus, the need of the hour is to promote sustainable production and consumption. The purpose of this study is to identify the basic barriers of sustainable consumer behaviour which are hindering the adoption of sustainable consumption.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part consists of a literature review based on 128 articles (1995 to 2020), which are spread over a period of 25 years. Based on the literature review, nine barriers of sustainable consumer behaviour were identified and put into three categories. In the second part, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process has been used to know about the relative weight of each barrier so that benchmarking/prioritising of basic barriers of sustainable consumer behaviour can be done.

This article identifies critical barriers affecting the acceptance of sustainable electronic products. High price, a perception of no environmental impact, no benefit in personal image, lesser use by family and friends, lack of awareness about the products etc. emerged as the potential barriers which need prime attention. The relative weight of each of these barriers has also been arrived at in this article which is expected to be beneficial for policymakers to focus upon important barriers. Impact of many of these barriers can be reduced through innovative approaches and solutions.

This article will be helpful in future research in the field of sustainable consumer behaviour. Through the understanding of the barriers of sustainable consumer behaviour, companies, governments and industries can take suitable initiatives by modifying the policies and practices to reduce the impact of these barriers so that consumer behaviour can be made more sustainable.

The current article tries to identify the critical barriers to adoption of sustainable electronic products by the consumers. An extensive literature review, expert suggestions and consumer survey have been adopted to identify nine barriers. Although, multiple researches have been done in the field of sustainable consumer behaviour and adoption of sustainable electronic products, there is no research article which solely focuses on implementing Fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (AHP) approach to rank the barriers faced by consumers for adoption of sustainable electronic products. It has been concluded that high price of sustainable electronic products is the most critical barrier in adoption of sustainable consumer behaviour. Moreover, the relative ranking obtained with the help of Fuzzy AHP can be used by policymakers and organisations to promote and implement sustainability in consumer behaviour.

This is an exploratory study on consumer information and behaviour towards green, health, local, social and environmental credentials on labels. It focusses on many dimensions of sustainability in the food products that affect consumer choices with a dual purpose: to identify and define “sustainable consumption” behaviour in broad sense and to investigate empirically the factors affecting the real consumption behaviours. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on consumers’ understanding, motivation and use of sustainable labelling in order to understand the role sustainability information plays in the food products market.

Two focus groups in order to investigate consumer motivation and behaviour in-depth and to prepare the questionnaire. Identification of the outcomes that could summarize sustainable consumption combining: purchase of local products, consume only seasonal fruit, prefer products with recyclable packaging, attention to the fat content in foods, give importance to traceability and purchase products only in the place of origin. Identification of the “at risk” virtuous consumer, using a binary logistic regression approach, taking into account demographic characteristics, the food and nutrition value system, experience, knowledge, institutional factors and marketing.

Results from the focus groups are mainly in line with the empirical analysis, highlighting the key role of education in influencing consumer attitude and behaviour. Consumers give little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection and have little knowledge of environmental problems. The virtuous consumer appears to give importance to a better food nutrition value system, to pay more attention to ingredients and instructions on the label, to be more attentive to environmental and sustainable attributes, to be concerned about product quality and to be slightly influenced by brands and special offers.

The findings from the empirical analysis confirm the results from focus groups even if it was not possible from the empirical analysis to investigate in-depth the marketing aspects concerning the food choice. This limit probably comes from the low number of observations. Further research will focus on these marketing aspects.

Products with sustainable attributes can become a strategic variable and allow companies to gain a competitive advantage, especially for small- and medium-sized enterprises. This may encourage the development of new marketing channels based on the direct relationship between producer and the new consumer demand, increasingly sensitive to the food security issues.

There is a potential interest and sensitiveness to having sustainable behaviour in a broad sense, but there is a lack of knowledge about how to behave to be sustainable. In the absence of binding rules, it is necessary that government promote information and campaigns to generate greater awareness on sustainability, aiming at increasing knowledge to drive the consumer’s choices. This may lead to virtuous results in terms of reducing social costs related to an unhealthy diet, food waste and unsustainable consumption.

The results show that despite the appearance of attention to the environment and to healthy food which is associated with this emerging critical consumer in the literature, there remains the problem of the consumer giving little attention to information provided on the label for sustainable food consumption and environmental protection. This is the problem of “rules of thumb” in purchasing decisions that prevail in the following situations: when consumers have an overload of information that exceeds their processing limits; when they tend to base their decision making on heuristics, focussing their choices on brands as a proxy for high-quality, product-related characteristics.

The purpose of this paper is to increase existing knowledge of consumers’ sustainable products via converging and testing social identity and value-belief-norm theory used in sustainable behaviour literature. More specifically, the present paper incorporated consumers’ orientation towards a lifestyle of health and sustainability (COLOHAS), attitude towards sustainable products’ (ATSP’) purchase, perceived consumer effectiveness and perceived knowledge about sustainability issues as a conceptual framework to understand comprehensively consumers’ willingness to pay premium price (WPPP) for sustainable products.

The data were gathered through a survey of 850 customers residing at Delhi-NCR and buying sustainable products. Data were analysed using the structural equation modelling approach.

The results show that perceived consumer effectiveness has a greater descriptive value on their WPPP than do their ATSP’s purchase and perceived knowledge about sustainability issues. Additionally, both dimensions (health consciousness and value orientation towards sustainability) of COLOHAS have been found to have a significant and positive influence on consumer ATSP.

The empirical results offer managers with better insights on how COLOHAS, perceived effectiveness and perceived knowledge about sustainability issues influences their WPPP for sustainable products.

This study adds to the body of literature by emphasizing those cognitive processes that influence the customers’ WPPP for sustainable products. Therefore, this paper presents important information to the managers and marketers about the sustainability aspects.

Regulatory pressure, consumer awareness, and the quest for competitive advantage place sustainable products in today’s decision-making spotlight. The purpose of this paper is to explore supply chain dynamics as they relate to sustainable product programs and to empirically develop a framework to align efforts across the supply chain to bring sustainable products to market.

Grounded in systems design, stakeholder theory, and the theory of planned behavior, the authors conduct an inductive empirical study of 28 European and US companies.

The authors make three contributions. First, the authors identify six dimensions of product sustainability, which map to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s sustainability scope model. Second, the authors model relational dynamics using systems diagrams to provide a framework that: first, communicates a common understanding of product sustainability; and second, facilitates tradeoff analysis. Third, the authors elaborate behaviors needed to reduce ambiguity and compliance costs.

Managers can use the framework to assess product sustainability and evaluate tradeoffs across product dimensions and supply chain participants. Using this insight, managers can design sustainable product programs that engage supply chain participants.

By identifying dimensions, defining costs, and uncovering tradeoffs, managers can more effectively implement sustainable product programs.

The framework provides a much needed source of clarity to mitigate role ambiguity, reduce compliance costs, and promote collaborative behavior in bringing sustainable products to market.