Business driven environmental action in agricultural based tourism micro-clusters in Norway and Australia

The inherent complexity in finding consensus solutions to global environmental issues, such as climate change and loss of biodiversity has led groups of businesses and communities to self-organise and voluntarily pursue collective environmental action. While there is frustration over the slowness of the global decision-making process relating to the environment, there is a realisation that environmental effort will be based on pragmatic assessments of shorter-term value-adding benefits for businesses and the local community. Thus, environmental behaviour is expected to be influenced by contextual and institutional factors across countries and regions, leading to differences in how environmental sustainability is perceived, how businesses and communities pursue environmental action and how environmental actions and programs are assessed. This research has examined two agricultural based tourism micro-clusters and their efforts towards addressing environmental sustainability: The Greening of Lovedale in the Hunter Valley wine area, NSW Australia; and the Vikebygd Landscape Park in the Hardanger fruit growing region of Norway. Both areas are located in prime tourism destinations, attracting tourists to an aesthetically beautiful landscape for the consumption and purchase of regional agricultural produce (grapes and wine, apples and cider). The study used a combination of cluster theory, institutional theory and the natural resource based view of the firm to analyse contextual, institutional and value-adding factors that impact on small businesses’ environmental behaviour within each case study region. Data was gathered using an identical mixed methods approach in the two regions and included a survey of small business owners and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders who have direct and indirect links with the respective micro-clusters. Differences in regulatory, social normative and cultural cognitive institutions in the two countries were shown to have had an impact on environmental attitudes and activities. In turn, this provided an understanding of the differences in barriers and drivers and value-adding perspectives for environmental action by the small businesses in the respective clusters. Contributions of this study include the examination of businesses’ and micro-clusters’ environmental behaviour in different contexts. The research has provided applied and policy contributions in the area of environmental policy for small business and micro-clusters, suggesting that, while market based instruments are useful for large businesses, these rarely provide enough incentive for small businesses to effectively pursue environmental action. The concept of sustainable destinations where community, businesses and local authorities collaborate to create a greener destination may be a model for developing supporting policies for environmentally committed clusters of small businesses. Through clustering and sharing resources and information, small businesses can overcome the barriers of knowledge and motivation that they face in incorporating sustainability programs into their business plans. The limitations of the study are linked to the selection of the case studies, the micro industries and countries included, and the constraints imposed by a cross sectional study. Future research could examine the differences in internal and external pressures between small and large businesses in different industries, and undertake examinations that track industry actions through time. The future of environmental policy lies in triggering both the social normative and cultural cognitive pressures to pursue collective environmental action as well as providing value-adding incentives for small businesses to reduce their environmental impact.