Green Behavior and Financial Performance: Impact on the Malaysian Fashion Industry

Abstract

The dogma of conscious environmental behavior has laid the paradigm for sustainable consumer behavior. Modern-day corporates have introduced innovative business models to add a new value to manage fluctuations in consumer behaviors and rejuvenate their financial performance. Similarly, in fashion industry, textile firms have warmly embraced the new business models and widely adopted environmental management systems (EMSs) to contribute to environmental sustainability. This research aims to explore eco-consumerism and its impacts on the financial performance of textile firms in Malaysia. The secondary data of textile firms’ performance from 2013 to 2015 were collected from an online database and annual reports of firms’ web portals. The findings reveal that the textile firms which successfully adopted EMS such as ISO 14001 show significant changes in performance compared with firms which are yet to adopt EMS certification. Moreover, eco-consumerism directly impacts EMS-adopted firms’ performance. Our findings are robust for practical, research, and managerial implications to classify and understand the impacts of consumers’ green behavior on corporate performance. This study contributes to understand the influence of consumers’ eco-behavior to adopt EMS and its impact on the financial performance of textile firms in Malaysia.