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The lack of a direct link between business value and sustainability is a critical roadblock to truly embedding sustainability in business strategies. Before launching the sustainability journey, every organisation should answer the question: “What value would this strategy offer our organisation?” Conversely, when organisations are opportunistic toward quick profits, the negative consequences of one domain spill over to another. The desire to produce more may result in overproduction, overconsumption or environmental pollution.

To give a complete analysis of sustainable capabilities, this study combines current theoretical understanding from past literature, followed by exploratory interviews and a thorough case study. The case study ventured into uncharted territories, unveiling an exciting new sphere of value catalysed by the mechanisms of sustainable co-creation. Additionally, it exposed thought-provoking motives driving supply chain actors’ unwavering commitment to ethical decision-making, even amidst towering challenges.

Our empirical lens reveals the hidden mechanics of resource sharing and the genesis of newfound value, illuminating previously obscure corners of the sustainability field. Moreover, it sheds light on retailers striving to cultivate green retail supply chains. It delivers an actionable framework that bolsters business sustainability and fuels competitive edge, which is vital in the rapidly evolving landscapes of emerging economies.

This study offers insights into the sustainable value-creation mechanism in ALPHA, a Malaysian retailer, uncovering how supply chain actors’ business activities generate economic, social and environmental performance.

The aim of the paper is to rank and analyze the key strategies to sustainable finance adoption in the manufacturing sector using Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) and MICMAC (impact matrix cross-reference multiplication applied to a classification) analysis.

The study develops a novel framework to identify and analyze the mutual relationships among set of sustainable policies using extensive literature survey and experts opinion. Initially, the study found 14 strategies to implement sustainable finance with the help of vast literature. Then, the list of identified factors were screened through Fuzzy Delphi Method (FDM). Based on driving and dependence power, the final list of factors are divided into three categories.

The study findings reveal that “environmental rules and practices”, “financial incentives, tax reduction and subsidy”, have strongest driving power for promoting sustainable financial system in Pakistani manufacturing sector. Furthermore, “environmental awareness” and “long term vision” are found to be highly influenced by other corresponding elements in a system.

The ISM approach assists professionals, academics, and managers in identifying and ranking policies in implementing green business techniques. The hierarchical representation of ISM results provides a roadmap for decision-makers to navigate and prioritize factors effectively, facilitating the implementation of strategies that contribute to sustainable growth within organizations.

The study results provide interesting clues regarding green finance policies that provide the foundations, incentives, protections or other provisions that support the ecological conservancy’s mission. Specifically, the findings guide that government must offer research grants to private enterprises, research and development institutions, and universities to promote environmental protection and develop transformative technologies such as waste recycling, renewable energy, carbon capture, and power consumption.

The exploration of strategies for sustainable finance adoption with the help of mixed methodological approach and classification of these strategies on the basis of importance level is a new attempt in the field of manufacturing sector.

The current study aims to deliver a consolidated view of environmental sustainability in cold supply chain performance systems (CSCPS), incorporating theoretical and empirical analysis for improving environmental standards. For this purpose, this study firstly aims to explore and analyze the various crucial challenging factors for environmental sustainability in the cold supply chain (CSC). Secondly, it discovers the most effective sustainable strategies for improving the environmental sustainability of CSCPS.

The exploration of the crucial challenging factors and the proposed sustainable strategies have been done using a systematic literature review relevant to the sustainable performance of CSC. At the same time, semi-structured brainstorming sessions were conducted with the domain professionals having an industrial and academic background to finalize the strategies. Empirical analysis has been performed using an intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) based hybrid approach of SWARA and COPRAS methods.

The key findings of the study address that “higher energy consumption during refrigerated transportation and storage” is the most crucial challenge for environmental sustainability in CSC. In addition, “managerial refrain to profit decline due to sustainability implementation” is the second most crucial challenge that hinders the adoption of sustainable practices in CSCs. Meanwhile, the governmental attention to motivating organizations for green adoption and implementation of solar energy-driven refrigeration technologies are the two most important discoveries of the study that might help in improving CSC's environmental performance.

From the implications side, the study enriches and extends the current literature content on CSC sustainability. In addition, it offers sound managerial implications by identifying the challenges that create threats among the management for sustainability adoption and suggesting the most suitable sustainable strategies, which may help the management to raise the environmental performance of their CSC. Besides having various important theoretical and managerial implications for the study, contemplation of only environmental sustainability traits as a broader perspective limits the scope of the study.

The study's main contribution is the exploration of the most crucial challenges imparting obstructions in sustainable development and sustainable strategies, which may get the interest of the CSC players, market leaders, and industrial and academic practitioners working in the domain of CSC sustainability. In addition, this study offers structured theoretical and empirical evidence for CSC's environmental sustainability, thus playing a bridging role between theoretical sustainability concepts and its practical implications in CSC industries.

This paper explores the integration of sustainable development practices within today’s business management, emphasizing the managerial perspectives and strategies adopted to address economic, social, cultural, and environmental dimensions of sustainability and their organizational outcomes, namely performance and reputation.

Through a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with twelve managers from various sectors, this research utilizes content analysis and Qualitative Data Analysis Software (AtlasTI) to map managerial insights and strategies. The study identifies key constructs and their impacts on organizational performance and reputation.

The study identifies a complex interplay between economic, social, environmental, and cultural management practices and their take on organizational performance and reputation in the current context and emphasizes the importance of leadership and regulatory frameworks in promoting sustainability.

The study’s qualitative approach provides in-depth insights but may limit generalizability. Future research could employ quantitative methods to validate and extend these findings across different contexts and industries.

This study contributes to the sustainability and business management literature by providing a detailed examination of how Romanian managers perceive and operationalize sustainability. It underscores the importance of integrating sustainability into core business strategies and offers practical insights for managers and policymakers aiming to enhance sustainable business practices.

Challenges related to sustainability have increasingly become pivotal in the realm of business strategy and innovation. Nevertheless, the incorporation of sustainability principles into business strategies and innovative practices remains a subject of ongoing scholarly debate. This paper aims to undertake a thematic literature review on this theme.

Data were gathered from the Scopus, Web of Science and Science Direct databases. The final sample comprised 85 papers. For analytical purposes, this study adopted topic modeling using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) methodology.

The authors identified five dominant topics concerning the relationship between sustainability, innovation and business strategy. Through a cross-analysis of these topics, the authors theorize that a sustainable innovation strategy encompasses three complementary and interdependent dimensions: capabilities, management and firm. Building on this analysis, the authors outline a research agenda aimed at further exploration and advancement of this theme.

This review enhances the synthesis of research on the theme, prompting reflections on how companies can initiate innovative sustainable actions that align with their business strategy. Additionally, the authors identify specific elements that require improvement to enhance each of the three dimensions of sustainable innovation strategies, such as eco-efficiency, circular economy and the adoption of innovative business models oriented toward services/servitization.

By interweaving sustainability with innovation and business strategy, this study underscores the critical topics that companies and public policymakers should address to support sustainable development at the national level.

While previous literature reviews have focused on the dyadic relationships between sustainability and strategy, or sustainability and innovation, this study extends the boundaries of knowledge by integrating these three concepts into a hybrid theoretical stream.

This paper seeks to present a longitudinal case study of Ontario Hydro – an industrial organization that used sustainable development as the basis for a strategy of social and organizational transformation.

The paper describes the complex factors that influenced the formulation and implementation of this strategy.

The findings indicate the advanced ambition and authenticity of Ontario Hydro's strategy, even though it was formulated some ten years ago. The study suggests that the strategy was abandoned for reasons that include the gap between the processes identified in the strategy and the processes followed in practice, the absence of platforms to discuss and agree the meaning and practice of sustainable development within the company and its wider system, and the scarcity of skills to facilitate sustainable development as a process of multi‐actor innovation. Consequently, the concept of sustainable development was not translated into practices that had shared meaning for the many actors involved in the energy system of Ontario. While based on a case study of one organization, the findings appear to speak to more general issues of sustainable development as the management of organizational and contextual change.

The paper indicates much about the process of organizational change to effect more sustainable practices within a company and its social context.

No other organization has pursued a strategy for sustainable development with the same claim to authenticity as that of Ontario Hydro, where the strategy was cross‐referenced to Agenda 21 and developed with input from some of the main architects of Agenda 21. Moreover, few studies of sustainable development in the literature span a period as long as this case.

This paper seeks to integrate sustainable development, based on the application of the extended bottom line (EBL-GMS®) concept, into the implementation of organizational strategy with the relevant stakeholders. As a result, a theoretical model is proposed.

The paper reviews selected literature to propose and analyse how sustainable development can be integrated into the implementation of organizational strategy.

This paper proposes a conceptual model that deals with the relationship between sustainable development and implementation of organizational strategy with the distinct stakeholders of a company. In the proposed model, authors indicate how the concept of sustainable development could be operationalized through each of the organizational stakeholders.

Companies, as dynamic systems, are relevant in the implementation process of sustainable development, which requires this concept to be fairly applicable. In general, only one of the bottoms of the triple bottom line (TBL) has been considered, being essential to integrate and consolidate, through an ethical and balanced manner, the economic, social, environmental and corporate identity elements. This paper addresses a critical condition for companies operating in highly competitive contexts: sustainable development and its relationships with strategy implementation. The originality lies in the fact that no studies have analysed the relationship between the sustainable development concept and organizational strategy implementation, based on the operationalisation of the extended bottom line (EBL-GMS®) concept.

This study investigates the relationship between managers' risk perception and the adoption of sustainable water consumption strategies and analyzes the moderating effect of stakeholders' salience attributes on this relationship.

A conceptual framework that builds on the stakeholder theory was developed to illustrate the direct and moderating role of the study variables. The derived hypotheses were tested quantitatively using multiple regression analysis.

Results indicate that managers' risk perception and the three stakeholder salience attributes were significantly associated with sustainable water consumption strategies, and that the legitimacy attribute was a successful moderator between the study variables.

The limited ability to generalize results as the study is centered on the hospitality sector. Although the results were comparable to other studies, it is not possible to claim that the findings represent the views of the majority of managers in different industry sectors.

The research highlights to managers in the hospitality sector, the significant influence of risk perception and stakeholder salience attributes on the adoption of sustainable water consumption strategies.

The research revealed that media, consumers and competitors are powerful, legitimate and urgent stakeholders, respectively. Therefore, the research findings will guide policymakers and nonprofit organizations to support those stakeholders in order to strengthen their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes.

Although it has been claimed that risk perception has the potential to influence sustainable consumption of natural resources, few studies empirically investigated the association of risk perception of a specific environmental threat with responsible consumption. Moreover, even though there is general agreement in the literature that the adoption of sustainable water consumption strategies is shaped by the degree to which stakeholders exercise their salience attributes, studies that empirically examine the influence of these attributes within the hospitality sector are lacking. Therefore, this study fills a gap in the current literature by empirically examining the influence of managers' risk perception and stakeholder's salience attributes on firms' adoption of sustainable consumption strategies.

Sustainable products often suffer a competitive disadvantage compared with mainstream products because they must cover ecological and social costs that their competitors leave to future generations. The purpose of this paper is to identify price strategies for sustainable products that minimize this efficiency disadvantage.

The strategies and their determinants from the pricing environment are derived from an inductive sequential case study of certified food products, such as organic and fair trade products. Data are collected through desk research and interviews.

The results reveal six different strategies that build on three basic mechanisms: cost-based pricing in combination with price fairness, increasing willingness to pay through perceptions of quality and/or price, and price stability in which costs are compensated for by scale and/or learning effects.

The framework can help companies that offer sustainable products strengthen their market positions and it can help policy makers that partly rely on markets to achieve sustainability objectives.

The existing pricing literature on sustainability predominantly takes a consumer approach. This study breaks new ground by extending this work with a strategic marketing approach offering a choice set of strategies for managers.