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Water Footprint Mitigation Strategies for Agrifood Products: The Application of System Dynamics in Green Marketing

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Strategic Innovative Marketing

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics ((SPBE))

Abstract

Water scarcity (WS), which leads to multiple environmental, social and economic ramifications, has emerged as an indisputable concern for both public and private stakeholders. In this context, the water footprint (WF) concept has been introduced for assessing freshwater consumption and pollution at national, corporate or product level. In the agrifood industry, freshwater is a pivotal constituent since agricultural activities consume 70 % of the global freshwater resources, while food processing operations account for significant freshwater utilization. To that effect, environmentally aware consumers are sensitive to the total product WF generated during agrifood supply chain (SC) operations, as well as to the manner in which the related freshwater exploitation impacts regional WS. Consequently, an increasing number of companies are implementing WF management policies across their agrifood SCs for mitigating freshwater utilization and promoting water-friendly commodities in order to enhance green corporate image and business financial performance. This study proposes a policy-making system dynamics (SD) model for monitoring both the WF of agrifood products and the profitability of the related SCs in terms of net present value (NPV). The model investigates the effect of various market behaviours in the relation between green image factor (GIF) and regional WS, when WF management strategies are implemented. The SD simulation results reveal that WF mitigation policies have a considerable impact on GIF in environmentally sensitive markets, thus increasing the relevant market share and the agrifood SC stakeholders’ profitability. Finally, this research provides managerial insights concerning green marketing interventions in the agrifood sector.

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Acknowledgements

This research has received funding from the European Union’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7-REGPOT-2012-2013-1) under Grant Agreement No. 316167 (Project Acronym: GREEN-AgriChains). In addition, E. Aivazidou is grateful to the Public Benefit Foundation Alexander S. Onassis for awarding her a fellowship to conduct this research work as a part of her doctoral studies.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Eirini Aivazidou & Dimitrios P. Vlachos

  2. Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77840, USA

    Eleftherios Iakovou

  3. Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FS, UK

    Naoum Tsolakis

Authors
  1. Eirini Aivazidou
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  2. Naoum Tsolakis
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  3. Dimitrios P. Vlachos
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  4. Eleftherios Iakovou
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eirini Aivazidou .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technological Educational Institute of Athens , Egaleo, Greece

    Androniki Kavoura

  2. Dept. of Computer Science & Technology, University of Peloponnese, Tripoli, Greece

    Damianos P. Sakas

  3. Technological Educational Institute of Athens , Egaleo, Greece

    Petros Tomaras

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Aivazidou, E., Tsolakis, N., Vlachos, D.P., Iakovou, E. (2017). Water Footprint Mitigation Strategies for Agrifood Products: The Application of System Dynamics in Green Marketing. In: Kavoura, A., Sakas, D., Tomaras, P. (eds) Strategic Innovative Marketing. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33865-1_35

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