No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

For more than 40 years, a tremendous number of studies have empirically explored the relationship between Corporate Environmental Performance (CEP) and Corporate Financial Performance (CFP). This study considers the relationship from a new perspective-via a qualitative research approach based on expert interviews. First, practitioners are queried for their view on the link between CEP and CFP and how to measure it. Since the vast majority see a positive relationship, this study contributes with a new form of evidence that it pays to be green. The chosen qualitative approach also allows a more detailed analysis of underlying cause-and-effect mechanisms. For instance, interviewed practitioners emphasize a direct and indirect impact from CEP on CFP. Second, the study conducts interviews with experts from research and associations (non-practitioners) and compares the viewpoints of the two interview groups. One prevalent difference refers to the fact that non-practitioners do not focus on the two impact levels. Moreover, business experts perceive the link between CEP and CFP as much less complex and reveal more pragmatically oriented considerations. The study then discusses how the interview results and identified differences can be used to direct future research and to support corporations in their move towards sustainability.

Scarce natural resources and the associated price increases are two of the many sustainability challenges that corporations face in the 21st century. Although resource efficiency is regarded as one of the means to tackle this issue, corporations are unsure of how to operationalize the term into appropriate indicators and how to measure progress towards being more resource efficient. We therefore interviewed 28 experts with two main outcomes. First, although questions focused on quite technical steps of the evaluation process and specific indicators, experts often steered the conversation from operational details to organizational aspects such as setting a resource culture and communication. Second, although interview results implicate several pathways to assess corporate resource efficiency, the analysis indicates a fit to a common performance measurement framework. Thus, corporations can build on prior work of general performance measurement research when they aim to consider resource efficiency performance as part of their progress towards sustainability. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment