Green Intellectual Capital: Boosting Sustainability via Innovation, Value Creation & Resource Efficiency

Abstract

In today's environmentally conscious marketplace, achieving businesssustainability is paramount for manufacturing firms. This pressure is particularlyacute in developing nations like Pakistan, where balancing economic growth withenvironmental responsibility presents unique challenges. Hence this study delvesinto the critical relationship between green intellectual capital (GIC) and businesssustainability in Pakistan's manufacturing sector. The researcher also examined themediating effects of green innovation, value creation, and resource efficiency onthis association. Employing a survey instrument, data is collected from large scalemanufacturing firms located in three different industrial cities of Pakistan throughconvenient sampling. Smart PLS SEM was used to explore the hypothesizedrelationships and the mechanisms through which GIC impacts businesssustainability via mediating variables. The results confirmed all hypotheses asstatistically significant. The first hypothesis showed a positive and significantrelationship between GIC and business sustainability (β = 0.101, p < 0.05). Thesecond hypothesis demonstrated that value creation effectively mediates therelationship between GIC and business sustainability (β = 0.191, p < 0.05). Thethird and fourth hypothesis found that green innovation and Resource efficiencyboth significantly mediates between green intellectual capital and businesssustainability with (B=0.183, p<0.05) and (B=0.120, p<0.05) respectively. Henceall the hypotheses were supported. These findings hold significant implications forPakistani manufacturing firms, offering valuable insights into strengthening theirenvironmental practices and achieving long-term sustainability. However, theapplicability of these findings to other sectors or countries may require furtherinvestigation. Further research employing more robust sampling techniques canenhance the generalizability of the findings