The world today is on the verge of exhausting its primary resources. In this situation the circular economy is undoubtedly a means of eliminating the shortage of raw materials faced by the Czech ...Republic and the whole of Europe. The development of the circular economy requires a change in how it is perceived by businesses as well as consumers. This paper is devoted to the perception and relationship between consumers and the circular economy. The potential offered by consumer behaviour as regards involvement in the circular economy lies in repairing, recycling and using products for other purposes, instead of discarding them in a landfill and then buying a new product. However, one fundamental prerequisite for this is that consumers decide to engage in the circular economy, a decision that can be motivated by economic conditions or personal incentives based on their own attitude to the environment. Two-level research was carried out in order to determine how the circular economy is perceived by consumers, where the qualitative method was first used to identify the concepts that consumers perceive as constituting the circular economy. The concepts were used to compile an original definition of the circular economy from the perspective of consumers. The concepts were subjected to quantitative data collection, identifying the importance of the concepts ascertained. The subsequent statistical evaluation served to detect differences in the perception of the importance of the identified concepts depending on consumer behaviour. The research shows that if consumers are aware of the importance of the circular economy, they themselves behave in a socially responsible manner. The assessment was intended to reveal differences in responses depending on the following demographic characteristics: age, gender, education and place of residence. It was apparent that only the respondents’ education is statistically significant, with consumers with a higher education assigning greater importance to the circular economy and thus being more likely to get involved in this concept.
This study analyzes the impact of environmental disclosure, board attributes, and firms' specifics on the levels of environmental and ESG performance in Europe and Asia. The study utilizes secondary ...data from Refinitiv Eikon database for 8094 firms for the period between 2016 and 2021. The study employs panel data analysis using fixed effect models to estimate the results. The findings suggest that disclosure on emissions, innovations, environmental controversies, environmentally friendly products, proactive environmental investments, environmental expenses, and fines charged by authorities have a positive and significant influence on the level of firms’ environmental and ESG performance. Furthermore, the study identifies board tenure, independence, size, and meetings as being associated with greater levels of environmental disclosures, reporting, and sustainability score. However, board diversity is found to have a limited contribution to environmental disclosures, especially in Asian countries. Additionally, the results reveal that companies with higher revenue growth, larger size and market capitalization, and better performance have greater and better disclosure of environmental and sustainability issues. The study provides practical implications for policymakers to establish comprehensive guidelines for environmental and sustainability reporting based on the analysis of institutional, regulatory frameworks, legislation, and sustainability score enforcement status of the country.
Research background:
The essence of corporate social responsibility is not new, but its form has changed over the years, as has changed the view on whether it is possible and beneficial to put this ...idea into practice. CSR concerns economics, corporate management, business ethics, sociology, political science, environmental sciences and many other disciplines and is becoming increasingly popular among the general public. In this context, it is possible to look for connections and links to the circular economy. The circular economy is a sustainable development strategy that creates functional and healthy relationships between nature and human society. It perfectly closes material flows in long-term cycles.
Purpose of the article:
The paper aims to point out the possibilities of linking CSR concerning the environmental pillar, with the processes of the circular economy in the global environment through a concrete example.
Methods:
To achieve the set goal, published materials of domestic and foreign authors were examined. As part of the in-depth analysis, case studies of selected subjects were examined. Besides, a synthetic-analytical method and an inductive-deductive method were used.
Findings & Value added:
The expected result will provide a picture of the possibilities of connecting corporate social responsibility regarding the processes of the circular economy. The findings may lead to a more effective link between CSR and the circular economy.
This paper explores how banks’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities affect their lending during financial crises. We use a sample of European listed banks with available ESG scores ...from 2002 to 2020 and consider the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 and the European sovereign debt crisis of 2010–2012. We estimate a two-step system GMM dynamic panel data model and also address potential endogeneity with instrumental variable (IV) and difference-in-difference (DiD) estimations. We find that lending falls to a lesser extent for banks with higher ESG scores during crisis times. Our findings are robust to using alternative ESG rating providers. An investigation of the different potential channels shows that, during crises, banks more engaged in ESG activities are less affected in terms of credit risk, asset risk, and profitability. They also face a lower reduction in market funding, allowing them to downsize to a lesser extent during crises, and their deposit rates do not increase as much as in less ESG-engaged banks. A deeper investigation reveals that our findings mainly hold for banks focused on traditional lending and deposit activities and are essentially driven by the environmental pillar component of ESG scores and the global financial crisis of 2007–2009.
Sustainable development is a global requirement, due to extensive economic and environmental issues, which requires research emphasis. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of ...sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) practices of sharing economy platforms on sustainable development goals (SDGs). This study addresses SSCM in terms of three pillars, the environmental pillar, economic pillar, and social pillar. The target respondents of the study are customers having relevant knowledge and sharing economy experience from China. Six hundred and fifty respondents are selected via Amazon Mechanical Turk, and questionnaires are distributed electronically. Only Chinese customers are selected for the survey. Two hundred and sixty questionnaires are used in the data analysis, which is done using the statistical tool AMOS. The results report a significant relationship between SSCM practices of sharing economy platforms and SDGs. According to the results, the three pillars of SSCM, are of key importance for SDGs. These pillars have a positive effect on promoting customer intention, which further promotes SDGs. The findings of the study are helpful for various organizations hoping to achieve SDGs in China through SSCM practices of sharing economy platforms.
The objective of this work was to research the impact of environmental, social, governance, and controversies (ESGC) indicators on financial performance. We used a sample of financial and ...nonfinancial business data from international countries for 2017 obtained through the Thomson Reuters environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) database. The company participants in the study belong to the tourism sector and are listed on international stock market indices. The methodology used was based on parametric and nonparametric statistical tests. Evidence supports that governance practices significantly influence financial performance. The contribution of the study is two-fold—from a theoretical perspective, it adds to the existing literature and, from an empirical point of view, we developed ESGC indicators and their relationship with financial performance using a binary regression logistic model, with results that can be applied to an international tourist perspective.
Nowadays companies are increasingly aware of the necessity of rethinking/transforming their business models to properly address the challenges of the circular economy. The circular economy can drive ...and support the development of new and innovative business models that consider the environment, community, or society as equally important stakeholders as the classical ones. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the existing conceptual framework of the circular economy by appealing to the characteristics of ReSOLVE, 9R frameworks, and circular business model to develop a framework for the circular fashion based on replication logic. For measuring the level of circularity in fashion industry environmental, pillar of ESG score, developed by Refinitiv Thomson Reuters, was used. The findings allow us to identify five phases for circular fashion transformation process and to reveal some business strategies for circularity. The results also show that the synergy of triptych supplier-producer-consumer is crucial for closing the loop.
Purpose
In recent decades, the concepts of sustainable development (SD) and sustainability have become a part of the everyday information flow. Is there real impact on students who have potential to ...become stakeholders and decision-makers? To be able to answer this question, the authors focussed on the following problems: whether the discourse of SD has any impact on students of economics concerning their knowledge of the environmental pillar of SD; and whether it has an impact on their individual value orientation towards the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP).
Design/methodology/approach
A group of 120 university students of economics programs from the Czech Republic was chosen for the quantitative research of this study. About a half of them have already encountered environmental education. The questionnaire included topics of environmental pillar of SD and revised NEP scale.
Findings
Using correlation analysis, the results show that the discourse of SD does have an impact on the students’ knowledge of the environmental pillar of sustainability and it also has an impact on their individual value orientation towards the NEP in general. The knowledge of the environmental pillar of SD is not significantly influenced by the study of a subject which included the topic of SD and its principles. Value orientation towards NEP is not significantly influenced by the study of a subject which, among other things, included the topic of SD and its principles.
Research limitations/implications
Findings should be accepted with the knowledge of the limited sample from one country, on the other hand, information flow – usual discourse of SD is global.
Social implications
There is positive NEP orientation among the students of economics – young women and men have pro-environmental attitudes. This can be considered as great unused social potential in higher education.
Originality/value
This study deals with knowledge of SD, environmental education and value orientation. It is broader concept taking into account the real social environment in terms of usual SD discourse and individual value orientation, not only direct influence of education on knowledge. The study rejected direct impact of the environmental education on knowledge and value orientation in terms of SD discourse among the students of economics. The findings bring several important questions regarding the effective forms of environmental education.
The aim of the paper is to define, quantify and compare the significant attributes of the impact of the environmental attitude of SME managers on the use and implementation of CSR in the V4 ...countries. The empirical research, which was aimed at identifying the attitudes of small and medium-sized firms, was conducted in June 2022 in the Visegrad Four countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Hungary). The data collection was carried out by an external company MNFORCE according to a questionnaire designed by the research team. The selection of respondents was made by random sampling from the agency's database. In the Czech Republic, the total number of respondents was 347. In the Slovak Republic the total number of respondents was 322. In Poland the total number of respondents was 381 and in Hungary the total number of respondents was 348. To test the statistical hypotheses, the regression and correlation analysis method (LRM) was used at a significance level of α = 5%. The results of the research showed that the positive attitude of SMEs towards environmental issues and doing business with respect to the environment influences the attitudes of entrepreneurs towards corporate social responsibility in the V4 countries. Knowledge of CSR concept is positively influenced by SMEs' attitude towards environmental aspects of business. As long as entrepreneurs behave responsibly towards the environment, it is assumed that they will positively perceive the possibility of using the CSR concept in the management of the company. Furthermore, the benefits of CSR are more widely realised by environmentally conscious entrepreneurs. Environmental protection is an integral part of socially responsible business and if entrepreneurs choose to run their company and business activities with environmental protection in mind, they are more positively inclined to implement other CSR pillars.
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