Employing green behaviour in the top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange

The twenty-first century calls for environmental sustainability to be addressed in order for future generations to exist. Although this is universally acknowledged, little is known about the stance of companies in South Africa or their contribution towards greening. This study identifies the extent to which the private sector, represented by the top 100 Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) companies in South Africa, adheres to voluntary climate change mitigation mechanisms. The sustainability reports on the websites of the top 100 companies listed on the JSE were used to code the actions they have implemented. A grounded theory design was used, the research approach applied was mixed method and the Green Five Taxonomy (Ones & Dilchert, 2009) was used as a measuring instrument. Exploratory Factor Analysis was utilised and a factor structure was revealed based on the Green Five Taxonomy employed by the companies on the JSE. The results indicate that the top 100 JSE companies are engaging actively on three of the five levels of Ones and Dilchert‘s taxonomy (Ones & Dilchert, 2009), namely Avoiding harm, Conserving, and Working sustainably. South African companies do not actively pursue the fourth and fifth levels, namely Taking initiative and Influencing others. This study is part of a growing body of research on proenvironmental behavior in the private sector. In using an untapped measuring instrument, this project contributes to future research on a similar topic.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Meiring, Deon

• Green behaviour
• Green sustainability
• Green five taxonomy

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/2263/110149

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/110149