title: Is environmental management an economically sustainable business?
abstract: This paper investigates whether environmental management is an economically sustainable business. While firms invest in green production and green supply chain activities with the primary purpose of reducing their environmental impact, the reciprocal relationships with economic performance need to be clarified. Would firms and suppliers adjust their environmental strategies if the higher economic value that environmental management generates is reinvested in greening actions? We found out that environmental management positively influences economic performance as second order (long term) target, to be reached conditioned by higher environmental performance; in addition, firms can increase their performance if they reinvest the higher economic value gained through environmental management in green practices: While investing in environmental management programs is a short term strategy, economic rewards can be obtained only with some delays. Consequently, environmental management is an economically sustainable business only for patient firms. In the evaluation of these reciprocal relationships, we discovered that green supply chain initiatives are more effective and more economically sustainable than internal actions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Information, Logistics and Innovation, VU Amsterdam University, de Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
authors.forename: Antje
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gotschol
authors.affiliation: Operations Management Department, ESSEC Business School, Avenue Bernard Hirsch, B.P. 105, 95021 Cergy Pontoise, Paris, France. Electronic address: pietro.degiovanni@essec.edu.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: De Giovanni
authors.affiliation: Decision and Information Systems Department, ESSEC Business School, Avenue Bernard Hirsch, B.P. 105, 95021 Cergy Pontoise, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Esposito Vinzi
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D018803:Models, Economic
keywords: Economic performance; Environmental performance; Green production; Green supply chain management; Structural equation modeling