Green Intellectual Capital as a Catalyst for the Sustainable Development Goals: Evidence From the Spanish Wine Industry

Introduction

Growing customer awareness of environmental challenges and strict environmental regulations mean that sustainability has become a business paradigm present in various economic sectors (Annunziata et al., 2018). There is some consensus in considering sustainability as a necessary challenge given the negative externalities generated by organizations to the environment. Thus, although the intellectual background of this debate dates back to the 1950s of the last centuries, today it is still necessary to make further progress in this direction.

In the wine industry, sustainability is an extremely important issue for two main reasons. On the one hand, the industry faces serious threats as a consequence of climate change, as well as water and energy scarcity (Aigrain et al., 2016; Gilinsky et al., 2016). On the other hand, proper environmental management of wineries can mean obtaining a competitive advantage, by allowing to increase market share and organizational innovation processes (Fiore et al., 2017). In this sense, previous work has shown that customers tend to select wines that have been developed following sustainable practices, despite not knowing what this means in practice (Schäufele & Hamm, 2017). From the producers' point of view, it has been shown that the implementation of environmental practices improves the quality and economic efficiency of employees (Szolnoki, 2013).

The concept of sustainability in the wine industry is supported by official documents of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), defining what sustainable viticulture is (OIV, 2004), what its guidelines are (OIV, 2008) and its general principles (OIV, 2016). Similarly, the main wine regions have developed their own national programs in order to implement the principles of sustainability in their territories (Marco-Lajara et al., 2022a; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022b; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022c; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022d; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022f; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022g; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022h; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022i; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022j; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022k; Marco-Lajara et al., 2022l). For the case of Spain, the Spanish Wine Federation (FEV, by its acronym in Spanish) developed the Strategic Plan 2019-2024 (FEV, 2019) with the aim of guaranteeing future wine production and its legitimacy in society through a comprehensive sustainability strategy. Said document establishes the set of policies that can be developed by the wine industry value chain to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations (UN). According to this strategic plan, the 11 SDGs related to the wine industry and, therefore, those in which the sector can have a relevant impact, are the following: SDG 3 -health and well-being-, SDG 5 -gender equality-, SDG 6 -clean water and sanitation-, SDG 7 -affordable and clean energy-, SDG 8 -decent work and economic growth-, SDG 9 -industry, innovation and infrastructure-, SDG 11 -sustainable cities and communities-, SDG 12 -responsible production and consumption-, SDG 13 -climate action-, SDG 15 -living terrestrial ecosystems-, SDG 17 -partnerships to achieve the goals-.

Compliance with the SDGs by organizations allows them to balance their economic, social and environmental objectives. In order to meet these objectives, companies must generate new knowledge that allows them to develop their activities through a sustainable approach (Boons et al., 2013), and they can adopt to increase their endowment of intangibles in its three aspects: human capital, structural capital and relational capital (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). In this sense, Intellectual Capital (IC) that incorporates environmental aspects, i.e., Green Intellectual Capital (GIC), takes on special relevance as it represents an essential element for achieving corporate sustainability.

The motivation for this research stems from two premises. First, a higher GIC enables companies to better meet their environmental challenges. Secondly, the GIC acts as a transforming element in the organization through the knowledge achieved. Based on these arguments and using the case study applied to a winery, the present study aims to answer the following research question: does GIC have a positive effect on the fulfilment of the SDGs promoted by the UN?