Green companies, also often referred to as sustainable businesses, seek to balance their profit objective with the need to protect the planet’s health. These companies integrate sustainability principles into all their activities, adopting practices that reduce the negative environmental impact globally and locally. The main objective of green businesses is to minimize their environmental impact while contributing to economic and social well-being.
As the threat of climate change and its devastating effects on our ecosystem become more acute, green businesses are focusing on strategies that allow them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a major cause of global warming. These companies not only adopt greener practices in their production processes but also engage in them but also create sustainability, such as renewable technologies, low-impact products and circular solutions, adoption. For many enterprises and workers today, the greening of workplaces can play a meaningful role in reducing carbon emissions.
The SUFABU project focuses on strengthening the core competencies of family entrepreneurs who have brought a new generation into the company’s management or are involved in a generational discussion on business management regarding the introduction of green technologies or practices. Due to their size, SMEs, and especially family businesses, have fewer opportunities to start implementing green transformation activities. The project creates a comprehensive training system based on various publicly available training materials and provides them with the missing know-how.
The following case studies concern family businesses that have embarked on a green transition process. The case studies have been divided into three macro-categories:
Many of the companies in the case studies have adopted measures belonging to more than one macro category. The choice to include them in the Greening process, methods and practices section is due to the fact that the main environmental sustainability measure adopted by the company falls into this category. This includes the following practices:
Energy Efficiency:
Energy efficiency involves using less energy to accomplish the same tasks, effectively reducing energy waste. This practice offers numerous advantages, including a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions, a reduction in reliance on energy imports, and a decrease in costs for both households and the overall economy.
Resource intensity:
Resource intensity is a measure of the resources (e.g. water, energy, materials) needed for the production, processing and disposal of a unit of good or service or for the completion of a process or activity; it is, therefore, a measure of resource use efficiency.
Waste management:
Waste management is the systematic process of collecting, disposing of, and controlling the various types of waste materials generated by businesses, individuals, or communities in an environmentally responsible and sustainable manner.
Green marketing/ labels
Green marketing is the set of marketing activities that start from the product’s procurement to the product’s delivery to the end user in a greener way. On the other hand, eco-labelling is one of the important tools for green marketing as it helps to differentiate green products from non-green products.
Sustainable business models
A sustainable business model empowers companies to take tangible steps towards sustainability across its three dimensions: environmental, economic, and social. This approach allows companies to systematically embed sustainability as a core principle in all areas of operation, ranging from establishing business goals to executing production activities. Examples include Circular Business, Sharing Economy, and Product-Service Systems within the Circular Economy.
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR), also called corporate conscience, citizenship, social performance, or sustainable responsible business, is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. CSR policy functions as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby businesses monitor and ensure their active compliance with the spirit of the law, ethical standards, and international norms. The goal of CSR is to embrace responsibility for the company’s actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making.
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