PTDo green practices help hotels and inns earn more?
Saving water and energy, sorting waste, buying eco-friendly products: does it pay off for the business? The thesis first gathered 122 studies on the subject and then surveyed 233 hotels and inns in Brazil. Explained in 12 screens.
In a hotel, eco-innovating means changing daily routines to use fewer resources and pollute less
Eco-innovation is any novelty that reduces environmental risks and impacts more efficiently. In this thesis, adopting any environmental practice already counts as eco-innovation. The questionnaire asked about five practices, one per floor of the hotel. Tap a floor:
Definitions from sections 1 and 3.1; questions from the questionnaire (Appendix, items 5 to 9). The examples for each practice come from the thesis’s introduction. Equal heights: the building is just a drawing.
Of 1,167 articles found, 122 actually dealt with the subject
The thesis’s first article searched three large research databases (ScienceDirect, Scopus and Web of Science) for studies on eco-innovation and company performance, from 1972 to May 2022. After removing duplicates and off-topic papers, 122 were left, which the author counted, classified and read. Tap a stage or switch the view:
Most studies confirmed what they set out to show, but few looked at services alone
The author classified each of the 122 articles into eight categories. For him, the literature indicates that eco-innovation is decisive for company performance, and studies combining environmental pressure, practices and competitiveness are lacking. Switch the category:
Counts from Charts 2.6 to 2.10 (each category adds up to 122). Height = number of articles.
233 hotels and inns from several regions of Brazil answered
The second article took the question to the field. Between January and June 2022, the author sent an online questionnaire to 474 hotels and inns; 233 answered, all with valid responses. The questions, from a study of travel agencies in Spain, were translated and checked by back-translation. The links between the answers were measured with structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).
Sections 3.4.1 and 3.4.2. The minimum of 138 came from G*Power; the response rate, 233 of 474 (49%), is our calculation. The sample is a convenience one: whoever chose to answer.
Table 3.2. Each dot is a response. Size by number of employees.
Managers agree with the green statements, but say 2020 and 2021 shrank the business
Before the links, the portrait. In the four ideas measured by agreement, the averages fell between “partly agree” and “slightly agree”. Performance in 2020 and 2021, pandemic years, sat close to “fell slightly”. Switch the scale:
The thesis built a chain of five links, from pressure to performance
The idea: pressure from customers, competitors and government leads the hotel to adopt green practices; these improve operations and competitiveness; and competitiveness improves performance. Before seeing the results, bet on each link. Your bets appear on the scoreboard on screen 11.
Model from Figure 3.1 and hypotheses from section 3.2. Tap an arrow or a bet to see the questions behind each idea (Table 3.1).
Those who adopt more green practices say they run at lower cost and are more competitive
Four of the five links were confirmed. The strongest is between practices and operations (0.553): those who adopt more practices also say they spend less on water, electricity and operations. Practices are also linked to competitiveness, directly (0.392) and through operations. Tap an arrow:
Final model, Table 3.15 and Figure 3.14. Arrow thickness = standardised coefficient. In the column, the path through operations is 0.553 × 0.184 ≈ 0.102 (our calculation; the thesis does not report the statistical test of this indirect effect). R² = share of the differences the model explains.
The chain stops before it reaches sales
The last link was not confirmed: hotels that describe themselves as more competitive did not report better performance in 2020 and 2021. Competitiveness explains only 1.8% of the differences in performance. Each glass shows how much of an idea the model explains. Tap a glass and the reasons:
R² from Table 3.15. On the competitiveness scale, 1 means agreeing; on the performance scale, 5 means rising. That is why the coefficient is negative (−0.135): it points in the expected direction, but is not significant (p = 0.263).
Publicly traded businesses and those the pandemic helped say they are more competitive
The author compared average competitiveness across groups of establishments. The clearest differences appear in the type of ownership and the effect of the pandemic; hotels and inns came out similar. Switch the group:
Competitiveness means from Table 3.9 (ANOVA) and pairwise comparisons from Table 3.10 (Bonferroni). The scale shows only the stretch from 1 to 4, with “fully agree” on the right. n = number of responses in the group (Table 3.2).
Four of the five links were confirmed
Pressure is linked to practices (H1); practices to operations (H2) and competitiveness (H3); operations to competitiveness (H4). Only the link from competitiveness to performance (H5) had no clear effect. Tap a column or a card to compare with your bet:
Table 3.15 (final model, with size and ownership as controls). Height = coefficient, without the sign. Confirmed = as the thesis states.
Green practices go hand in hand with leaner operations, but the effect on the bottom line still needs to be measured
For hotel and inn managers
Environmental practices can cut operating costs and be seen as a differentiator by guests who value sustainability. (author) Our reading: the research measured what managers perceive, not the water and electricity bills.
For government
The statement about government promoting environmental protection in the sector drew the least agreement among the pressure items, and public support for cleaner production was the operations question least linked to the others: for the author, the authorities need to do more. (author)
For researchers
Measure performance with other samples and outside the pandemic years, and fill the review’s gaps: studies that combine pressure, practices, competitiveness and financial performance. (author)
What this research does not say
- Convenience sample. The 233 who chose to answer; the findings do not generalise to the whole sector. · according to the author
- No region or exact figures. The thesis does not know where each establishment is, and time in business and number of employees came in bands. · according to the author
- Perceptions. Everything is what respondents reported, with no financial data from the hotels. · according to the author
- Performance in unusual years. The change in 2020 and 2021 was measured, and the final measure kept sales, food and leisure (profits and market share were dropped for overlapping too much). · our observation
- The path through operations. It was read from the arrows; the test of the indirect effect does not appear in the thesis. · our observation
Credits
LOPES, José Luís. O impacto da ecoinovação no desempenho financeiro das empresas – um estudo para o setor de hotéis e pousadas no Brasil. Doctoral thesis (Business Administration), Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, 2023. Advisor: Prof. Dr. Leonardo Fernando Cruz Basso.
Thesis approved on 4 August 2023. Analyses in jamovi, Stata and SmartPLS 4. This version simplifies the work for a general audience.