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The case study incorporated a combination of primary and secondary data collection approach. The authors interviewed Dr Varghese, the co-founder of Sunbird Straws and the protagonist in this case study. In addition, secondary data was obtained from various sources such as newspaper articles, journal publications and company reports.

On a rosy and vibrant morning in 2017, Dr Saji Varghese, a professor at Christ University in Bangalore, stumbled upon a curved coconut leaf on the campus resembling a straw. This sparked his motivation to transform coconut leaves into a natural straw, prompting him to initiate experiments with coconut leaves in his kitchen. The process of boiling and straining leaves became his method for crafting an eco-friendly straw. After numerous attempts, he successfully produced straws from coconut leaves, introducing a distinctive and creative concept incubated at IIM Bangalore. These unique straws, crafted by Varghese, prioritised environmental friendliness and were also crafted entirely from biodegradable materials, free from harmful chemicals. These straws demonstrated durability in hot and cold beverages for up to 3 h, maintaining their integrity without becoming soggy or leaking. As the business flourished, it reached a critical juncture. The primary challenge centred around product marketing, mainly due to consumer unfamiliarity with such sustainable straws. This was a product that also fell under the category of low involvement for consumers. Raising awareness about the product and persuading consumers to purchase presented a significant hurdle. In response, Varghese assigned his team to develop cost-effective marketing strategies. Given the start-up nature of the business, advertising budgets were constrained, and the objective was to achieve a positive return on advertising spend for every investment in advertising the product. In addition, the focus was on increasing the likelihood of selling the straws on both business-to-business and business-to-consumer levels. In this case study, Varghese’s role and predicament exemplify the delicate equilibrium that entrepreneurs frequently grapple with, striking a balance between marketing strategy and return on ad spent to steer the trajectory of their businesses. It offered a valuable examination of the nuanced decisions marketers encounter as they strive for both profitability and customer-centric products.

The case study is relevant to the marketing discipline. All undergraduate and postgraduate-level marketing courses in higher education institutions can use this case study. It can also be used in integrated marketing communication or digital marketing classes. It can be used further in the hospitality and management fields. Also, online courses in marketing can include this case study.

This paper aims to understand how a sustainable entrepreneur through his/her sustainable innovation can implement the three pillars of sustainable development, i.e. economic, social and environmental pillars, and how an entrepreneurial opportunity can be sought in environmental problems to develop a new product.

A qualitative research approach using a single-case study design has been adopted. It discusses the case of an Indian sustainable entrepreneur working for the cause of reducing plastic pollution in India and providing employment to rural women from economically weaker backgrounds. Data was primarily collected through semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed through thematic analysis.

The paper shows how an entrepreneur through entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and sustainable innovation contributes toward sustainable development.

This study highlights the need for institutional support by governments for a wide spectrum of sustainable enterprises as they can help the governments in achieving sustainable development goals at local levels. It will also act as a representative example for the entrepreneurs about how one can covert an environmental problem into an opportunity, through sustainable innovation.

The originality of the study lies in the presentation of an innovative idea developed by the entrepreneur for addressing the problem of plastic waste. The case used here demonstrates that sustainable entrepreneurship, through sustainable innovation, can deal with multiple economic, social and environmental issues.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effects of cement‐ and earth‐plastered straw bale walls against the appropriate vertical loads.

The effects of contact between two common types of plasters and the stacked straw bale by the optimal design analysis have been assessed in this work with the use of finite element method.

Cement‐ and earth‐plastered straw bale walls have shown adequate resistance against the appropriate vertical loads and showed that the earth‐plaster can bear higher stress than the cement plastered straw bale. There is the implication that the collapse or response of the earth‐straw bale wall will be significantly higher compared to that of cement‐straw bale wall.

The stress stability obtained of the analytical walls is adequate after using the best fit variables for the wall height and thickness.

The paper shows that the allowable stresses of 70.14 kN/m² for cement plastered straw bale wall and 73.14 kN/m² for earth‐plastered straw bale wall are higher than the calculated stress values using SAP2000 of 18.836 and 64.2 kN/m² for cement plastered straw bale wall, respectively.

There is growing interest in using crop residues, particularly cereal straw, to replace fossil fuels in heat and electricity production. The purpose of the present study was to assess and compare the environmental impacts of straw production in two European Union countries, Poland and Finland.

The selected environmental impacts were greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity and soil physical quality. The latter was represented by the indicators of soil erosion and compaction. For biodiversity and erosion assessment, the authors used two methods that could be used with existing easily accessible data and thus did not require excessive fieldwork.

Compared to the fossil reference fuel, coal, straw production caused minimal GHG emissions in both of the subject countries. Biodiversity and erosion impacts were greater in Poland, while the potential risk of soil compaction caused by field traffic is greater in Finland.

The study provides insight into the impacts of bioenergy production on biodiversity and soil quality, of which there is currently limited knowledge.

Sustainable food practices have been recognised as a key issue in efforts to improve and report sustainable tourism practices, given the importance of the social, environmental and economic impacts of the food industry throughout its entire chain of production – from farm to fork. From this standpoint, the aim of the present paper is to propose a comprehensive framework for reporting or making decisions concerning sustainable food management in hotels, taking into account the various facets of the food supply chain.

Several dimensions are proposed for dealing with sustainable food management, involving all aspects of food supply chains that may be relevant for hotel decision-making. Furthermore, some key criteria for creating and using indicators of different types (qualitative and quantitative) to address these various dimensions of sustainable food management are suggested. Subsequently, the proposed framework is validated with the sustainability criteria and indicators provided by the top eight hotel groups, according to the 2019 SAM Annual Corporate Sustainability Assessment.

Hotels neglect a number of aspects of sustainable food management identified in the framework. The quality and the quantity of the information provided by hotels are limited.

There is a need to improve sustainability in food management in the hotels under analysis in several areas. A comprehensive framework such as that proposed in this paper may be of great value in seeking to remedy this situation. It may also assist users of hotel services and communities in making more informed decisions.

The proposed framework may be beneficial in advancing academic debate towards a more embracing and relevant understanding of sustainable food management in hotels and on the indicators required in this regard.

This paper aims to clarify how organizations manage their participation in networks to share and jointly create knowledge but also risk unwanted knowledge spillovers at the same time. As formal governance, trust and observation are less applicable in informal networks, the authors need to understand how members address the need to protect knowledge by informal practices. The study aims to investigate how the application of knowledge protection practices affects knowledge sharing in networks. The insights are relevant for organizational and network management to control knowledge risks but harvest the benefits of network engagement.

The authors opted for an exploratory study based on 60 semi-structured interviews with members of 10 networks. In two rounds, network managers, representatives and members of the networks were interviewed. The second round of interviews was used to validate the intermediate findings. The data were complemented by documentary analysis, including network descriptions.

Through analyzing and building on the theory of psychological contracts, two informal practices of knowledge protection were found in networks of organizations: exclude crucial topics and share on selected topics and exclude details and share a selected level of detail. The authors explored how these two practices are enacted in networks of organizations with psychological contracts.

Counter to intuition that the protection of knowledge can be strengthened only at the expense of knowledge sharing and vice versa, networks benefitted from more focused and increased knowledge sharing while reducing the risk of losing competitive knowledge by performing these knowledge protection practices.

One of the objectives of smart village is the efficient use of regional resources by local people to improve economic, social and environment conditions. Small-scale dairy farm (SDFs) exist in every village of India, contributing significantly to local economy and welfare of few families. The purpose of this work is to develop a mechanism to make SDF not only efficient but effective in operations.

A systems thinking approach is used to identify the variables influencing a SDF and develop a general framework – RAMHI (resources, alternate revenue, manpower, herd and infrastructure) comprising endogenous and exogenous variables. A representative SDF as a case study was chosen to implement RAMHI and assess its implementation feasibility and economic benefits.

Implementation of RAMHI gradually improves the economic benefits of a SDF. The key performing indicators like average milk produced/day; milk revenue/fodder cost; number of successful artificial insemination (AI) of herd/number of AI of herd; milking cow/dry cow; and milking cow/total cow, increased substantially in two successive years.

The literature reported and discussed individual variables influencing functioning of SDF while there are few conceptual frameworks proposed, comprising not more than three variables. This paper not only presents a comprehensive generalized framework – RAMHI, which comprises five variables like resources, alternate revenue, manpower, herd and infrastructure but also explains the implementation strategy and its benefits using a case study.

Undoubtedly, saving the environment and avoiding environmental damage is one of the major challenges facing any government. The purpose of this paper is to add to the accumulative knowledge in the field through investigating the different factors affecting the adoption of newly developed water filters by Egyptian farmers to reduce the massive air pollution resulting from burning rice straw. Such investigation will help in achieving a deep and reflective understanding of current adoption practises by Egyptian farmers.

To understand the different factors that might have an impact on the adoption of newly developed water filters by Egyptians, a survey research strategy as well as a focus groups mechanism were conducted employing triangulation methodology in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected based on a post-positives approach. This quantitative study was performed in five local councils in Al-Sharqiyah Governorate, one of the biggest governorates in rice production in Egypt, based on a questionnaire built on some parameters related to Egyptian farmers’ perceptions of clean water. Statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences to analyse the collected data and evaluate the ability to promote the newly developed filters.

The findings indicated that the adoption of water filters by Egyptian farmers is affected by two groups of factors, namely personal factors and water-related factors. With regard to this, it was found that age, cost, farmers’ attitudes towards using water filters, farmers’ trust in the water pipes systems, and the usefulness of the filters have a positive impact on water filters adoption by Egyptian farmers. The findings also indicate that water filters adoption by Egyptian farmers has a positive impact on a farmer’s intention to buy a water filter and their intention to share a water filter with others.

The paper will provide great benefits for entrepreneurs, policy makers, practitioners, and researchers though providing a clearer view and deep understanding for the issues related to different factors affecting the adoption of newly developed water filters by Egyptian farmers.

This research adds to the relatively limited empirical research that has been conducted on water management in south Mediterranean counties. Moreover, the findings and results of this study will provide great assistance and benefit to business owners, practitioners and governmental agencies concerned with water management in south Mediterranean countries since it reveals a number of dynamics and potential scenarios that should be taken into consideration.

A specification can be an effective contractual tool to help achieve green construction. In Hong Kong, a multifarious specification arrangement exists in the construction industry, despite progress being made in the public and private organizations towards green practice. The purpose of this paper is to propose a green specification framework by modeling after established green specification systems.

Three sample work sections of green specification have been prepared for concrete, paint and lighting to represent structural, architectural and building services trades, with which a series of interviews with construction stakeholders was conducted. Assisted by a structured questionnaire, the time, cost, quality and liability implications of the proposed framework were studied.

Apart from minor additional cost, time and liability impacts, which would level off with increasing use of green products and practice, the quality of construction is perceived to be good if the framework is adopted.

The proposed framework embraces the important facets for specifying green construction. A roadmap is also recommended for its sustainable adoption. The methodology and results will be of good reference value for other jurisdictions.

Nowadays, companies abandon their traditional rent-gaining strategies. They pursue triple bottom-line results by implementing economic, environmental and social sustainability strategies. This paper aims to link the main sustainability strategies of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in emerging and developing markets (EDMs) to the strategic, industrial, market and institutional antecedents of sustainability development.

Positivism and a deductive research approach are used to test propositions through a multiple case study strategy, to identify the sustainability strategies of five MNEs belonging in five different industries, and the antecedents of these strategies.

Strategic leadership and strategic behavior/orientation are among the most important antecedents of sustainability strategies development in EDMs. The sustainability strategies are partially industry specific. However, all companies had undertaken activities that go beyond the mitigation of their negative impact, acting as regulators of the EDMs.

Previous literature has explained sustainability as an attempt of the MNEs to cover institutional voids and the absence/failings of the state. This paper contributes to the exploration of sustainability strategies of MNEs in EDMs, by identifying the strategic and market influences driving sustainability and by linking this strategic behavior to industrial and institutional idiosyncrasies.