Environmental management, cleaner production and organizational performance: a structural approach

Organizations can redirect their business models to solve the problem of materials depletion using environmental management and cleaner production as practices of the circular economy. This study aims to measure the relationship between environmental management, cleaner production, and organizational performance. Within this context, a survey of 372 companies was performed in the agro-industrial, manufacturing and construction sectors in three important productive regions of Colombia. Structural Equation Modeling was used for data analysis. The economic sector moderated the relationship between the latent variables. This phenomenon was analyzed using a multi-group technique. The results show that Cleaner production is positively related to Organizational Performance at corporations. The results show that Cleaner production is positively related to Organizational Performance at corporations. It was also observed that Environmental Management influences Cleaner Production. Finally, it is worth noting that productive sectors in Colombia tend to be committed to circular economy practices, some to environmental management and others to cleaner production with an impact on organizational performance. The result of the study may be useful for domestic and foreign investors and managers, for analysts and researchers, and for educators. The rationale behind this is an understanding that interactions between environmental management and cleaner production and organizational performance will influence the academic community or business activity to generate behaviors favoring the environment and sustainable development. These findings will be extremely useful for promoting future research studies on establishing an improved framework for the promotion of environmental management and cleaner production practices primarily among Colombian productive companies. This work can also serve as a reference for other industrial sectors and countries.