Sustainable business models can help us move beyond the current consumer society and integrate sustainability into our lifestyles. The COVID-19 crisis was a strong test of sustainability for these models. In our study, we assessed which business models are highly dependent on the economic cycle and are highly embedded in consumer society. We conducted our research at the height of the second wave of the pandemic and asked university students about changes in their consumption patterns and their expectations for the future. We carried out cluster analysis on our sample of 622 respondents. We were interested in the extent to which participation in certain business models could be associated with the rebound effect that could be predicted after the epidemic. The stronger this effect, the more embedded a sustainable business model is in consumer society and the less able it is to reduce its environmental impacts in the long term. We found that resource efficiency, the sharing economy, and digitalization fall into this category. Participation in sufficiency and stewardship-based business models predicted much less rebound impact. These models showed more clearly the sustainability characteristics of sustainable business models.

A huge set of sustainable business models have emerged during recent decades to promote decarbonization, but the drivers of their consumer adoption remain somewhat unclear. This paper examines these drivers based on a sample of 622 university students during the second wave of COVID-19 at the end of 2020. Our research links business models to the theory of planned behavior and discusses their adoption from a consumer perspective. Using exploratory factor analysis, we identified five major and nine minor components of SBM adoption. Findings suggest that functional benefits, general attitudes, and habits may play a more important role in these factors than sustainability values during the second wave of pandemic. Still, sustainability values have neither lost nor gained momentum during hard times. Thrift, localization, and digitalization have become more dominant. We find that some SBM models are very strongly embedded in consumer culture, so the spread of SBM models does not necessarily lead to a reduction in environmental impacts.

This study investigates the complex relationships between globalization, economic growth, urbanization, and ecological footprint in the context of advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Employing a club convergence framework, we evaluate global SDG Index from 2000 to 2023 for 149 countries with 3212 observations, identifying five converging clubs and one non-converging group. Our analysis demonstrates that higher GDP per capita and various dimensions of globalization positively impact SDG outcomes, whereas rapid urbanization and expansive ecological footprints exert negative influences. This research highlights the critical need for tailored policy interventions that address the distinct challenges encountered by different country clusters to bolster sustainable development efforts. Our findings reveal the multifaceted nature of sustainable development, indicating that economic growth and globalization can support SDG advancement if their detrimental effects are effectively mitigated. The study offers valuable insights for crafting national and global strategies to expedite progress towards the SDGs, emphasizing the importance of harmonizing economic, social, and environmental priorities.

The restrictions and lockdowns resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the rise of sustainability-focused business practices. The aim of this study was twofold: to explore how consumer adoption of sustainable business practices changed during the pandemic, and to examine whether a rebound effect was to be expected once the pandemic was over. The authors used descriptive statistics, as well as factor and cluster analysis on a sample of 622 recipients to investigate the above areas. The results showed that consumers’ openness to the practices studied increased overall, apart from sharing solutions (accommodation, transport). However, there also seemed to be a rebound expected in the adoption of sustainable business practices after the pandemic, already partly observed, for example in terms of material consumption and missed trips.

Der Artikel bietet einen Überblick über die Situation des betrieblichen Umweltmanagements in Ungarn im Vergleich zu den älteren EU- und OECD- Ländern. Weiterhin werden die komplexen Beziehungen zwischen der Implementierung von Umweltmanagement-Praktiken und der betrieblichen Umwelt- und Geschäftsperformanz analysiert. Die empirische Evidenz basiert auf umfangreichen Forschungen in OECD-Mitgliedsländern, wobei insbesondere Motivation, Entscheidungsprozesse und Organisationsstruktur von Unternehmen im Zusammenhang mit Design und Implementation von Umweltmanagement-Instrumenten und -Systemen erforscht wurde. The paper provides an overview of the state of corporate environmental management in Hungary compared to older EU and OECD states. It also explores the complex relationship between the implementation of environmental management practices and corporate environmental and business performance. Empirical evidence is taken from a comprehensive piece of research, carried out in OECD member countries, which explored motivation, decision-making procedures, and organisational structure of companies in relation to the design and implementation of environmental management tools and systems. The Journal of East European Management Studies aims to promote dialogue and cooperation among scholars seeking to examine,explore and explain the behaviour and practices of management within the transforming societies of Central and Eastern Europe. The theoretical interests of the journal are organisational and management change, Central and East European societies (including those on the fringes of Europe) undergoing processes of transition or transformation, and scientific issues of business, management and organisation that arise in such contexts. The JEEMS aims to attract social scientific contributions from scholars of any nation and region, but particularly wishes to encourageauthors from those countries directly experiencing transformational change. Its potential readership is international, comprising academicsand practitioners with an involvement or interest in the management of change in transforming societies in Central and Eastern Europe.