Investments in renewable energy sources are an important direction in the development of modern economies. Motivating organizations to include appropriate investments in their development strategies becomes an essential issue. It seems clear that organizations need to see the long-term benefits of such investments in order to follow this trend. This article presents a thesis that assumes that from the microeconomic perspective, such investments are conducive to the implementation of various goals of the organization, causing the phenomenon of resonance in spheres such as the implementation of the sustainable development strategy, the level of innovation in the organization, brand image, and brand equity. The survey method was carried out on a sample of 143 industrial companies in the food industry in order to verify the hypotheses based on previous examples. Among the most important findings, it should be noted that investments in renewable energy sources make a significant contribution to building the market position of enterprises, in particular, to the level of innovation, creating value in a sustainable enterprise, and achieving goals in the area of creating a positive brand image and brand equity. The findings show that investing in renewable energy is compatible with the organization’s different goals.

Developing countries, including Pakistan, need a considerable effort to withstand economic growth; however, these countries have to cope with greenhouse gases emission and other environmental concerns. Financial advancement gives rise to modern, sometimes even innovative and energy-efficient technologies and, thus, contributes to a decline in energy usage among market entities: organizations and households. The current study explores the nonlinear asymmetric relationship between economic growth (Y) and the selected exogenous variables in Pakistan by incorporating time series data spanning from 1971 to 2016. Economic growth was considered as a target variable, while energy consumption (EC), electric power consumption (EPC), financial development (FD), and energy imports (EM) were considered independent variables. To investigate cointegration among the given variables, a nonlinear ARDL bound testing approach was employed. BDS independence test was used to check the nonlinearity, and a structural break unit root test was used for testing data stationarity. The findings confirm the presence of co-integration in the selected variables. A symmetric unidirectional significant causality exists running from EPC to Y, while a bidirectional symmetric causality was found between FD and Y. In contrast, any negative shocks in EPC, FD, and EM were found to have a positive asymmetric effect on Y. Meanwhile, a neutral effect was found between EC and Y. The outcomes of this study can provide guidelines for future researchers and policymakers.

The purpose of this study is to explain the determinants of the process of investing in renewable energy sources (RES) from the perspective of enterprises, with particular emphasis on the strength of their orientation on such strategic issues as sustainable development, orientation towards innovation, as well as the level of maturity of their partnership with the client. The research method was carried out on a sample of 157 industrial enterprises in the food industry. The research process was conducted with the consideration of making these decisions dependent on the strength of companies’ commitment to several strategic issues: sustainable development, innovation orientation, and the maturity of their partnership with the customer. The results of the data analysis collected during the quantitative research show a strong correlation between the level of openness of the organization of the IR 4.0 era to RES and (a) orientation towards sustainable development, (b) orientation towards intelligence, and (c) maturity of strategic partnering with customers.