Broadening the concept of sustainability and measuring its impact on firm’s performance

Abstract

The consumer environmentalism has grown significantly due to issues triggered by environmental disasters, protests by activists, and environmental education (Mclntosh, 1991; Straughan & Roberts, 1999; Chen, 2010). The concerns of the consumers and societies have also compelled the firms to alter and align their business practices in line with the relevant issues (Ottman, 1992; Peattie, 1995; Kotler, 2011). In this changing scenario, environmental and social issues arising due to business practices are expected to have a deep influence on marketing theory and practice necessitating firms to pursue sustainability related practices more actively (Kotler, 2011). Although firms are increasingly engaged in marketing and business practices with a blend of sustainability, the concern over their footprint on the environment, economy and society has gathered momentum over a period of time due to ineffective outcomes. At this juncture, the role of behavior towards sustainability is very important since successful implementation of the sustainability in a firm also largely depends on the institutionalization of the right perspective and behavior (Dopplet, 2003; Steg & Vlek, 2009). This study helps in broadening the concept of sustainability by exploring the behavioral elements at the firm level that contribute towards sustainability. It also develops a measure of sustainability of the firms that includes behavioral dimension in addition to the social, environmental and economic dimensions. The study finally ascertains the impact of the sustainability measure on different performance metrics of the firms in a B2B context.