Innovation in Green Practices: A Tool for Environment Sustainability and Competitive Advantage

The main objective of chapter is to highlight green innovation practices as a tool of environment sustainability and competitive advantage. It also explains their influence on environment and how they contribute to competitive advantage of an organization and help in maintaining environmental sustainability. Sustainability and environmental issues are rapidly emerging as one of the most important topics for strategic business, management, manufacturing, and product development decisions. This heightened awareness of the natural environment has been reflected in the innovative and environmentally conscious products offered to consumers in recent years. Firms develop sustainable programs with the purpose of greening their own products and process while reducing the impact of their activities. In order to eliminate the problems of environmental pollution, the concepts of environmental management, such as green management, green marketing, green production and green innovation, etc. are now being pursued. Apart from innovation, the concerns of enterprises regarding environment has become main factor for achieving competitive advantage in the competitive business environment. Organizations tend to rely on developing innovative products to stay competitive.