Environmental Sustainability and Performance (Only available in English)

This study sheds light on the relationshiop between environmental sustainability and financial performance of SMEs. Indicators of environmental sustainability were tested against the revenue development and profit development of 357 firms. In addition, the country of origin and the communication of sustainability towards employees and customers have been added as variables to investigate whether these factors moderate the relationship between sustainability and performance. The results indicate a distinctly different relationship between sustainability and the dependent variables revenue development and profit development. Furthermore, the communication of sustainability within the firm appeared to be an important determinant for financial performance (especially concerning profit development). More research is advised using more detailed data concerning the degree of sustainability of firms, performance of firms and firm specific characteristics in order to validate whether these results are consistent over multiple studies.